LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



©^ap. - ©Djiiirigr^t f}a. 

Shelf ..L.Bioa5 

JESL 

UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



Pedagogical Pebbles 




J. N. PATRICK, A. M. 

Author of '' Lessons in English,''^ ^^ Essentials of English''' 

AUD 

^^ Elements of Pedagogics.''^ 




Zi i^s- 



"Bvery man's task is his life-preserver." — Hmbrson. 



BKCPCTOIvD & CO., 

St. Louis, Mo. 






• 

Copyright, 1895, 

BY 

J. N. PATRICK. 




Preface. 



These "Pebbles" were suggested and jotted down 
while I was engaged in the actual supervision of graded 
school work. This account of their origin explains the 
form in which they are presented. Each pebble is 
independent, being related to the others only in the 
order of its birth. 

The book aims to be merely suggestive. The teacher 
who needs more than suggestion needs more than detail. 
A teacher's greatest need is inspiration, not direction. 
No copyist ever inspired a dull pupil. We have already 
had too much copying. No one ever achieved suc- 
cess in the school room by blindly following authority. 
Success in teaching comes from a conscious knowledge 
of correct methods and tact in applying them. 

This little book is not a school room guide. It has 
a higher mission than mere direction. It is a modest 
attempt to call the attention of young teachers to many 
small points in the theory and practice of teaching 
which they may not have learned in the study of peda- 
gogy. It is published in the hope that it may lead 
many teachers to look within for the inspiration, pur- 
pose, and self-reliance which make teaching real. 

o^ T TXT T ionr; J- N. Patrick. 

St. IvOUis, Mo., June, 1895. '^ 

iii 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Preface ---- 3 

Contents ----- 4 

PART I. 
Generai, Suggestions -----._ 5.46 

PART II. 

Speciai, Suggestions ---..-_ 47.93 

Reading - - - . 49-52 

SpeIvWng - - 53-54 

Language - 55-62 

Arithmetic - - - - . 63-76 

Geography - 77-82 

History - . . _ 83_g4 

Foundation Facts - 85-93 



IV 



PART FIRST. 
General Suggestions. 



' ' Thou 

That Tea chest 

Another 

Teachest Thoti- Not 

Thyself r' 



VI 



Pedagogical Pebbles. 



^ The teacher is on the decline who does not find in 
the presence of a class of children the inspiration which 
fills him with the spirit of love and helpfulness. 



^ In the primary grades the teacher is the only source 
of inspiration. During the first four years of a child's 
school life, fifteen minutes a day with a breathing 
teacher is worth more to him than an hour with a 
text-book. With pupils under ten years of age the 
teacher is the text-book. 



^ The one great habit which pupils should acquire 
during the first four years of school life is that of self- 
reliance. Facts are valuable, but habits are more 
valuable. The teacher who helps a pupil to acquire 
proper habits of study has done him a substantial 
service. Correct methods of instruction establish cor- 
rect habits of study. Method is the mother of habit. 
Habit is self. 

* The most impressible period of a child's school life 
is spent in the primary grades. Easy and careless 
teaching during that period is intellectually destructive. 
Under the direction of timid and ignorant inexperience, 
children acquire habits that the tact and the patience of 
even the ablest teachers cannot always dislodge. As 
children acquire but little lasting information in the 
primary grades, they should acquire correct habits of 
vu 



8 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

study. There is no reason why the six year old child 
should not be as correctly taught as the twelve year 
old child. In the primary grades especially, the 
teacher's presence should be felt as well as seen. 
Earnestness, energy, and sympathy on the part of a 
primary teacher usually find a ready response in the 
heads and the hearts of little ones. 



^ During the first four years of school life, a pupil 
should master the mechanical part of reading and the 
fundamental rules of arithmetic. In reading, he should 
learn to call words readily and correctly; he should 
learn the meaning and the use of punctuation marks; 
he should learn something of emphasis and inflection. 
In arithmetic, he should master the four fundamental 
rules. He should be able when he enters the grammar 
grade to add numbers as rapidly as he can speak results; 
to read differences and quotients as quickly as he names 
words in the reading lessons. This the average pupil 
can do, if he is properly taught the work of each grade. 

® If a pupil does not acquire correct reading habits in 
the first four grades, the chances are that he will never 
acquire them. If he does not learn to do the work of 
the fundamental rules in arithmetic in accordance with 
the established laws of mind and facts of number, the 
chances are that he will hesitate and blunder, in the 
merely mechanical work of arithmetic, throughout life. 
The place for the most exact teaching is in the first 
four grades. Only the most conscientious, competent, 
and earnest teachers should be placed in those grades. 
The determining habits of pupils are formed in the 
primary grades. 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 9 

■^ No one who has not been trained in a training school, 
or in the actual work of the school-room and at the 
expense of children, can properly teach or govern chil- 
dren. The bad habits acquired by pupils under the mis- 
direction and indifference of unthinking and immature 
boys and girls, are known only to those who have given 
the subject intelligent consideration. A school may be 
a help or a hinderance; whicTi, depends entirely upon 
the kind of teacher it has. The ideals which it creates 
may bless or blight. It is a self-evident fact that wrong 
methods of instruction establish wrong habits of think- 
ing. Pleasure in the pursuit of knowledge depends 
upon methods of study. The mind when properly 
exercised is always pleased with its experiences. 



® The recitation of the words of a text-book, without 
ample illustration, is a school room farce. Without the 
ability to illustrate, a pupil learns much he will never 
know; that is, he merely recites the words of another, 
and mere recitation does not involve the understanding; 
it has little intellectual or moral value. Ample and 
clear illustration by the pupil is the only measure of his 
knowledge of the lesson, hence teachers should insist 
upon illustrations of definitions and rules. 



® The three great obstacles in the way of American 
school children are, (1) the youth of many of the 
teachers, (2) the lack of training on the part of a large 
majority of teachers, (3) the use of too many text-books 
in the lower grades. Text-books have put many 
schools to sleep. Humdrum, text-book recitations soon 
stupify the brightest class. 



lo PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

1° Sound methods put tlie burden of the work upon the 
pupils. The successful teacher does not recite the 
lesson for the pupils nor feed them with suggestive 
questions. He talks but little. Pupils go to school 
not to learn to lean upon teachers and books, but to be 
trained in habits of self-reliance. They go to school 
not to hear teachers tell things, but to tell things 
themselves; not to be filled, but to be unfolded. Schools 
are supported not that teachers may recite to pupils, 
but that pupils may recite to teachers. Telling a pupil 
is not training him ; mind is developed only by its own 
activity. Mere filling is not culture; culture is the 
ability to reason. Think of this fact, talking teachers. 
Divide your talking by two and thus multiply the value 
of your services by four. A pupil's greatest need is 
training, not cramming. Text-book recitations are only 
means to an end; habit is the end. 

^^ The soul rejoices only in self-won victories. It feels 
no special pleasure in results obtained through the 
direction of others. The earlier a child is trained to 
rely upon itself, the less the total burden of teaching it. 
The pupil's greatest need throughout school life is 
inspiration, not direction. Pupils should be encouraged 
to realize their aim through their own efforts. Much 
help on the part of the teacher weakens the will of the 
pupil and leads him to look for help when he should 
not receive it. In many schools the pupils are not 
required to think for themselves. The teachers tell 
and the pupils believe. Traditional routine is master. 
Real teachers train pupils to rely upon themselves; 
school-keepers train them for beggars. Teachers stim- 
ulate activity; school-keepers stupify it. 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. ii 

^^ Pupils do only what they are permitted, or rather 
encouraged, to do. If they are noisy, it is the teacher's 
fault; if they do not sit and stand erect, it is the 
teacher's fault; if they look down upon the floor or out 
of the window while reciting, it is the teacher's fault; 
if they fall into their seats while uttering the last words 
of a sentence, it is the teacher's fault; if they use both 
hands in holding their books, it is the teacher's fault; 
if they lean against the wall or hold fast to a desk while 
reciting, it is the teacher's fault; if they fill the air with 
wriggling hands, it is the teacher's fault; if non-reciting 
pupils disturb a reciting pupil, it is the teacher's fault; 
if pupils are not respectful to the teacher, it is the 
teacher's fault. The teacher is responsible for the 
school habits of his pupils. A teacher may have both 
head and heart culture and be a school room failure. 
She may be faithful, but still unsuccessful. The be- 
ginning of success is a gift. 



^^ It is strange, passing strange, how little of improper 
bodily habits some teachers see. They have eyes but 
see not. It is stranger still how few ungrammatical 
expressions some teachers hear. They have ears but 
they hear not. Every ungrammatical expression should 
be heard and corrected at the time. Every such cor- 
rection is more valuable than a regular lesson in formal 
grammar. 

^* Restlessness on- the part of pupils can be cured only 
in one way — that is by getting them to work. Give 
them all they can do. Make the recitations so exact- 
ing (not so long) that they must study. Do not use the 
recitation time in talking, but use it in hearing. 



12 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

^' Telling pupils to ''go to work" or to "get their 
lessons," never yet caused one pupil to go to work or 
to get his lesson. Make the recitations so personal, so 
exacting, that the average pupil will go to work. Self 
respect will compel him to work. In your method, 
appeal to the man that is in the boy. There is an 
undeveloped man in every average boy. The average 
boy has brains and honor. Reach his honor through 
his brains. You cannot reach either through cheap 
devices or through his skin. 



" "Picking" at pupils — telling them to "sit up," 
"to keep quiet," "to study" — does little or no good. 
In a short time the disregard for the oft repeated in- 
junction is seen in increased restlessness and disorder. 
When pupils learn that the injunction is only formal — 
a sort of habit — they do not even hear it, for pupils 
hear only what has meaning. The remedy is in the 
teacher — in the recitation. Get the pupils to work, 
and there will be little use for phrases which only 
irritate. Or, stop the recitation, say nothing, and 
stand still until the room is quiet. Stop the work of 
the school whenever necessary to give meaning to your 
general regulations. A teacher who cannot command 
and maintain order is a failure. 



^^ Teacher, seldom or never repeat a question or the 
assignment of a lesson. Once is enough. By repeti- 
tion you encourage the habit of inattention, increase 
your own work, and consume time. Give your pupils 
to understand that you must have their attention. Do 
not permit them to trifle with you nor with themselves. 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 13 

^® Pupils should not be permitted to leave their seats 
during school hours for imaginary wants or for trifling 
needs. Their wants will usually keep until recess or 
noon. Only for a real want or urgent necessity should 
a pupil be permitted to leave his seat while the school 
is in session. Every time a pupil leaves his seat or 
crosses the room he disturbs the entire school. 



^® If a teacher cannot govern a school without daily 
recourse to some form of physical force, he is a fail- 
ure. The fear of punishment cannot long control 
children. Brute force is a questionable agency in the 
government of humanity. The frequent use of the rod is 
a frequent acknowledgement of natural unfitness. With- 
out discipline, firm but kind, a school is but a school 
in name. Without the discipline which inclines an at- 
tentive ear to the voice of the teacher, instruction is 
fruitless. Without the quiet which invites thought, 
the school is but a farce. The price of proper school 
discipline is constant vigilance on the part of the 
teacher. Purpose, energy, and tact are always com- 
bined in successful teachers. 



^° Spasmodic teachers cannot govern children. Ener- 
getic, methodical persistence is the key to success in the 
school-room. Pupils readily recognize just what a 
teacher is and govern themselves accordingly. Cor- 
recting a pupil occasionally will not dislodge his bad 
habits. Pupils do not respect spasmodic efforts to 
govern them. Persistency of purpose distinguishes the 
successful teacher from the failure. If you would dis- 
lodge a bad habit, you should always oppose it. 



14 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

21 It is a sad sight to see an untrained boy or girl, fresh 
from some traditional high school or quack normal 
school, trying to instruct children. Without the slight- 
est idea of how children are governed, they resort to 
force to cover their unfitness. With but a scanty 
knowledge of the subjects they are called upon to teach, 
their instruction is timid and soulless. But human 
nature is so self-helpful, so assertive, so divine, that it 
will unfold and develop notwithstanding the obstacles 
frequently put in its path. Teaching school requires 
the whole of a man or a woman: boys and girls are not 
larofe enouofh to teach others. The teacher needs the 
enthusiasm born of purpose. He needs the zeal of a 
lover. He should feel that his work is a necessity and 
that he is indispensible. The man who succeeds, feels 
that he has a mission to fill. 



^2 If inexperienced children are to have places in our 
schools as teachers, they should be assigned to the upper 
grades. Many can teach pupils who are old enough to 
help themselves, but few can teach children in the 
primary grades. The more a pupil can help himself 
the less he needs a skillful teacher. 



2® A real teacher never fails to leave an indelible 
impression upon every pupil he instructs. Pupils grow to 
believe and to act like their teachers. It is a real thing 
to teach school. No other work is so important or so 
complex as the work of the teacher; no other work 
requires a maturer mind, a clearer judgment, a more 
perfect self-control, or a larger knowledge of human 
nature. No other profession demands so much of its 
devotees. No other calling requires so many eyes, so 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 15 

much patience, so much perseverance, so much faith, 
so much love. The mother and the teacher are respon- 
sible for the man. Teacher, do you feel that you are 
building for the future? Do you know that the habits 
which children acquire under your direction, or by 
your permission, usually accompany them throughout 
life? Do you know that the ideals formed in early life 
lead to success or failure in later life? 



^* Teachers should ever be students. No teacher can 
succeed who is content to remain in a state of rest, or 
who stops to ask the cost of his labor or what will be 
his reward. The world owes nothing to its contented 
men and women. Contentment means decline. The 
only way to do well is to strive to do better. This law 
of growth through striving is as universal in its appli- 
cation as the law of gravitation. A teacher without an 
ideal — an ever movable ideal — is intellectually, if not 
morally, dead. 

^^ Attention, attention, attention. Teacher, if you can- 
not get the attention of your pupils, you cannot teach 
them. Without the ability to secure and retain the 
attention of your pupils your work is worthless. The 
pupils* attention you must have. Get it. Get it in 
some way. No one can tell you just how you can get 
it. Personality is greater than method. If all of a 
class attend, each pupil recites the entire lesson. Only 
those pupils who attend are really present; the inatten- 
tive are practically absent, present yet absent. With- 
out attention, there can be no perception; without 
perception, there is nothing to remember; hence there 
is no advancement without attention. The art of teach- 



i6 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

ing is the art of getting attention. Giving attention is 
acquiring knowledge. Though a teacher possess all 
knowledge and speak vvith the tongues of men and of 
angels, if he has not the tact which secures and retains 
the attention of his pupils, he is a school room failure. 
Without the indescribable art which holds the attention 
of pupils, instruction is in vain; the work and the 
prayers of the teacher avail nothing. Without the 
tact, the earnestness, the enthusiasm, born of developed 
purpose, a teacher cannot reach the heads and the 
hearts of children. 

^® Teacher, you can by tact, patience, and methodical 
perseverance get most of your indolent pupils to study- 
ing by requiring them to revise every careless, inac- 
curate, or wordy statement or explanation. You can 
generally compel an inattentive pupil to become atten- 
tive by requiring him to exhibit himself at every recita- 
tion — by leading him to see himself as the studious 
pupils of the class see him — by being firmly and uni- 
formly exacting with him in all he is called upon to do. 
Train yourself to see your pupils. A glance of the eye 
should cause every wandering pupil in the room to 
return to his work. Teach pupils that you are ever on 
the alert. 

^^ The pupil must give attention to one thing at a time, 
if he would acquire lasting impressions. The clearest 
images and the deepest impressions are made when the 
mind is concentrated upon a single object or thought. 
The greater the number of objects simultaneously in 
consciousness, the less distinct the impression of each. 
The clearness of an impression depends upon concen- 
tration of attention upon a single thing. The strength 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 17 

and durability of a perception depends upon the quality 
of the attention which occasioned it. We may perceive 
so feebly that the impressions will become confused 
with other feeble impressions and soon pass out of con- 
sciousness. It is thus clear that dissipation in teaching 
means a confusion of impressions and little advance in 
mental power or knowledge. Pupils may recite the 
same lesson several times and not intellectually perceive 
a single principle in it. 

^^ Clearness of statement is evidence of culture. The 
mere ability to state a fact in careless or slovenly 
English does not suggest culture nor learning. A large 
majority of text-book facts are valueless in themselves; 
they are means to an end. That end is training in 
habits. Clearness of expression in the statement of a 
fact or in the analysis of a sentence or a problem, has a 
ofreater intellectual and moral value than the mere 
acquisition of the text-book fact. The parrot-like 
recitation of facts in the language of others is not 
significant. 

^® A feeling recognition by the teacher that his methods 
are founded upon correct principles does much to 
sweeten his labor and to strengthen his faith in him- 
self. The inspiration which yields success in the 
school room is born of intelligent aims. 



^° Attention to little things often distinguishes the suc- 
cessful from the unsuccessful teacher. The former sees, 
the latter does not; the former hears, the latter does 
not. The former is sympathetically exacting, the latter 
is indifferently exacting. One is positive and uniform; 
the other passive and spasmodic. Teachers should 



i8 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

train themselves to see and to hear because * ' we see 
only what we have been trained to see ' ' and ' ' we hear 
only what we know.'^ A teacher should be all eyes, 
all ears, all earnestness, all purpose. The sum of many 
little things in school- work is success or failure. 



^^ In a school of thirty or more pupils, but little time 
should be given to individual instruction. With the 
exception of an occasional hint, the instruction should 
be class instruction. In classes, pupils teach each other. 
If several pupils are required to illustrate a principle or 
to state a text-book fact in their own language, each 
one will get a wider view of the matter than when 
taught alone. Class recitation gives each pupil in the 
class an opportunity to measure himself with every 
other pupil in the class. It gives the teacher an oppor- 
tunity to grade his pupils and to draw upon each for all. 
In class instruction, the teacher is less apt to tell than 
in individual instruction. A class does not so directly 
ask for help as an individual. Individual instruction 
tends to destroy the pupil's self-reliance. If help can 
be had for the asking, the pupil will often get it when 
he should not receive it. 



^^ Never have pupils recite consecutively; that is, in the 
order in which they sit or stand during the recitation. 
Never do anything in a routine way. Keep each pupil 
in the class constantly on the alert by tact in your 
method. Be always new, yet always the same. 

33 ''Roy, you may read that again. Now be careful 
about calling the words." Thirteen words — quite a 
lecture. Only two were necessary. *'Roy," to call 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 19 

his attention, and ''again/' to call upon him to correct 
his mistakes. Fully one-half of the teacher's talk is 
a trespass upon the pupil's time. 



^* The little word again may be made a very helpful 
word in the school-room. If properly used, it will save 
much unnecessary talk on the part of the teacher and 
much time for the pupil. When a pupil blunders in 
reading, mispronounces a word, makes a statement in 
slovenly English, or uses twice as many words as he 
should use in making an explanation, the teacher 
should say "again,'' just one word, and the pupil 
should try again. Why should the teacher say "John 
you may recite again, ' ' or " Mary you know better than 
that." The persistent use of "again" will do more 
for a pupil than a scolding or a lecture. In this way 
every recitation may be made a valuable language les- 
son — a training in the use of language. The liberal 
use of this little word will do more toward teaching 
the use of good English than high-school rhetoric in 
later years. 

^® A pupil should not be permitted to begin his recita- 
tion until he is in proper position. " Position " — just 
one word — should adjust a pupil. " Position" is more 
concise and personal than "stand away from the desk," 
" stand in the middle of the aisle," "hands out of your 
pockets," "look at me," and many other traditional 
school room phrases. One word, "position," should 
correct all improper attitudes. Insist upon position 
until it becomes a habit. An occasional position will 
not establish a habit. The persistent use of the two 
little words "again" and "position" would save 



20 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

teachers three-fourtlis of their unnecessary talk, save 
time, and encourage quiet and industry on the part of 
pupils. Teachers should teach brevity and quietness 
by being brief in statement and quiet in movements. 

^^ Such stereotyped commands as * ' Take your places 
quietly" and "See how quiet you can be to-day," 
make little or no impression upon pupils. Without 
vigilance, teachers will, unconsciously, grow into routine 
habits of speech and action. Without an ever-present 
high ideal, human nature tends to automatic conditions. 
It requires inspiration and purpose to keep awake. 



37 (( 



Be careful of your commas to-day " was the warn- 
ing given a second reader class before the recitation was 
commenced. The pupils did not even hear the warn- 
ing. If it reached one ear, it passed right out of the 
other. It took time to utter it, and the utterance dis- 
turbed the whole school. It was silly. 

^^ Fully one-half of the movements of pupils and classes 
should be indicated by a motion of the head or the 
hand. Every movement that can be indicated by a 
sign or a gesture should be so directed. Fully one-half 
of the oral commands should be avoided. Quiet not 
only saves time, but it induces thought. 

3» One tap of the bell or a motion of the hand or the 
head should call a class or dismiss a room. A pupil 
should take his seat as soon as he reaches it. He 
should not be required to stand until all the class are 
ready to sit down or for a signal from the teacher. 
A movement once indicated by the teacher should be 
completed by the pupils without further notice. 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 21 

*° While hearing a recitation, the teacher should remain 
in about the same position, that he may give undivided 
attention to the work of the class. Moving from place 
to place not only disturbs the pupils, but prevents the 
teacher from concentrating his attention upon the class. 
Restlessness of body disturbs the mind. 



*^ A teacher should never permit a pupil to annoy him 
with questions while he is hearing other pupils recite, 
or is otherwise engaged. Pupils should ask all ques- 
tions during recitations. Teachers should not encour- 
age pupils to seek individual instruction; it lessens the 
value of the recitation. Pupils should be trained to 
look to the recitation for answers to questions and for 
explanations of difficulties. 



42 



Teacher, train yourself to see and to hear more, that 
you may see and hear less. Teachers who can see only 
one pupil at a time and only part of him should not 
hope to govern a school properly, or to hold the atten- 
tion of a class. Seeing pupils is an art. They should 
be seen all the time, yet not watched. As you learn to 
see and to hear, your pupils will learn to do. Thus by 
training yourself, you train others. The inability of 
teachers to see and to hear things is the cause of many 
failures. 

*^ Pedagogically wise is the teacher who sees even a 
glimpse of the great truth that telling is not teaching. 
Telling implies mental activity on the part of the 
teacher only. The pupil may be merely a passive 
listener; he may not even hear the teacher. Teaching 
implies mental activity on the part of the pupil as well 
as the teacher. To teach is to develop, to awaken, to 



22 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

cause a pupil to think, to help him to help himself. 
Telling merely fills a pupil with facts; teaching leads 
him to discover his own facts. *' Gifts do not enrich.'' 
Real wealth is an acquisition. 

** The child begins to acquire his school habits the first 
day he goes to school. From the hour he enters the 
school room he is trained by teacher and pupils. In a 
very large measure their habits become his habits. At 
any age we are influenced by our associates, but the 
child of six years is so impressible, so imitative, so 
unsuspecting, so believing, that he is little more than 
putty in the hands of others. 

*^ The cost of undoing the bad habits which pupils 
acquire while in charge of incompetent or indifferent 
teachers is known only to those who know something of 
the tenacity of lial)it. Some teachers permit pupils to 
become so listless and inattentive that when they are 
promoted to a higher grade, they cannot do the work 
of the grade. If the work of each grade is not correctly 
and thoroughly done, there is great injustice done the 
teacher in the next higher grade. Teachers who can- 
not or who will not do the work of their respective 
grades should be dropped from the pay-roll. The 
superintendent who is too timid to superintend should 
seek a place where compromises do not ruin children 
and rob parents. 

*° Teachers should ever bear in mind the fact that the 
primary function of the school is the training of pupils 
in correct methods of study — that but few of the text- 
book facts learned in schools are remembered one year, 
and that fewer still have any value as knowledge. 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 23 

Until a pupil acquires the study habit, he can make 
but little progress in his studies. Teacher, you can 
help him to acquire the study habit only in one way — 
by interesting him in the work of the school. 



*' Many teachers try to make everything easy for their 
pupils. Teachers may make their schools pleasant, 
but they should never try to make them easy places. 
There are no easy places in this world. Breathing 
teachers do not seek easy places for themselves or their 
pupils. Only the "living dead'^ seek ease. Young 
man, if you want an easy place, do not try to find it in 
the school room. I^eaders are workers. If you want to 
sit in a chair and dream, children should not be made 
the victims of your indifference and unworthiness. If 
you do not feel the responsibilities of a teacher's work, 
enter some profession where less of purpose, energy, 
and honesty is required. If you do not really love 
children, enter some work where less of sincerity and 
genuine humanity is needed. If you are teaching for 
" pin-money," find some place where your services will 
prove less disastrous. 

*® Formal routine is not experience; it is too mechanical. 
The work of a teacher is real work. It demands the 
earnestness and enthusiasm of an idealist. Wakeful- 
ness on the part of a teacher is necessary to success. 
No one succeeds in any work by simply hoping, pray- 
ing, and weeping. Physical, intellectual, and moral 
growth is the result of physical, intellectual, and moral 
activity. Mere belief in dogma, sound or unsound, 
never awakened a sleeping soul or aroused a dull boy. 
Purpose and enthusiasm are the conditions of progress. 



24 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 



49 



The tact, the patience, and the persistence required 
to govern and instruct forty or fifty children six years 
old are found in but few families. The successful 
primary teacher is a special creation. She cannot be 
made to order in Normal schools nor anywhere else. 
No amount of pedagogical patience and skill can turn 
nature out of its own direction. We can cultivate only 
what we have; we cannot create. Training cannot 
complete what God did not begin. Success in any 
department of life depends upon natural fitness. It is 
the result of normal conditions. Tact, energy, and 
enthusiasm are the distinguishing characteristics of 
the successful primary teacher. More is required of 
teachers in the primary than in the grammar grades. 
As pupils become self-helpful, tactful teachers become 
less necessary. 

®® Teachers cannot properly govern a school nor hear a 
recitation while sitting. They may keep school, but 
they cannot teach school. The weaker the teacher, 
the less he feels the responsibility of his work; hence 
the more he sits and dreams. Purpose and character 
are best seen in action. 



®^ The mind is not satisfied with the recitation of the 
words of others. Learning alone does not satisfy the 
cravings of the soul. Only that which is acquired by 
the mind's own activity improves and strengthens it. 
Teacher, if you are a routine recitation hearer, get rid 
of the habit at once. A lifeless recitation of dead text- 
book facts carries with it a deadly poison. Independ- 
ent thinking on your part will lead to independent 
thinking on the part of your pupils. My young friend, 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 25 

think these thoughts until they become your thoughts. 
They will inspire you, lighten your labor, and bless 
your pupils. 

^^ Many teachers attempt to teach so many facts in a 
single lesson that there is little or no concentration of 
mind on the part of the pupil, hence the impressions 
are indistinct and transient. Teacher, be definite in 
your aims; select the important fact or principle and 
emphasize it; see that the class follows you and under- 
stands you. It is clear seeing and deep conviction that 
give life meaning. 

®^ Many teachers are ever too ready to help their pupils 
over every difficulty — over the very obstacles which 
they should master unaided that they may learn to rely 
upon themselves. Many teachers give too many help- 
ful suggestions — suggestions which almost tell just 
what the pupil should find out for himself. Teaching 
which makes school life easy for the pupil is destructive 
teaching. It robs him of his opportunity and gives 
him a wrong impression, not only of school life, but of 
life in general. When a teacher feels that he should 
help a pupil, he should not do so directly. He should 
lead the pupil slowly and cautiously by means of sug- 
gestive questions to help himself out of his difficulty. 
The tactful teacher — the real teacher — seldom finds it 
necessary to do anything for a thinking pupil. 



54 



Pupils should not be expected to master school text- 
books. They should not be required to work all the 
problems in the traditional arithmetic, to recite all 
the facts and dates in the histories, nor to answer 



26 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

all the questions in the catechism geographies. At 
least half of the time in many schools is spent upon 
detail which has no value as a means of training or as 
knowledge. It cannot be remembered and would be 
valueless if it could be. Why then teach it? Habit, 
is the only answer. 



®® The teacher who has not thoroughly prepared the 
lessons for the day cannot be a leader in any proper 
sense. What a teacher knows superficially, he teaches 
superficially. Scanty information upon a subject makes 
a teacher timid. Timid teachers make uncertain pupils. 
Vague, indefinite instruction leaves vague and indefinite 
impressions. 

'" Interest in school work cannot be developed by the 
pouring-in-method of teaching nor by sleeping teachers. 
Teachers are helpful only to the extent that they lead 
pupils to help themselves. The teacher who tells a 
pupil anything that he should draw out of the pupil, is 
a hindrance rather than a help. Interest in school 
studies is a mental state due to habits of voluntary 
attention; it cannot be developed by routine recitations 
nor by telling teachers. Surface exhibitions cannot 
long interest pupils. Mere formality does not arouse 
the soul. 

°' Knowledge cannot be poured into a pupil's head as 
peas are poured into a pot, hence telling is not teach- 
ing. To educate a child is to do more for him than 
merely to cram him with text-book facts; it is to train 
him in correct habits, moral, intellectual, and physical. 
Knowledge is not a gift, but an acquisition. All that 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 27 

a teacher can do is to arouse mental activity and lead 
the pupil to desire knowledge. The pupil must supply 

the desire. — 

®® Teacher, distinguish between the useful and the use- 
less in teaching arithmetic, geography, history, and 
erammar. A knowledg^e of the useful is the need of 
nine-tenths of our pupils. Pupils should feel that they 
know the essential facts, the useful facts, of the com- 
mon branches. 

^® Teachers must govern as well as teach. A school 
without order is a school without purpose. Order 
invites the mind to work; disorder prevents it from 
working. Quiet induces study; noise prevents study. 
The tact which governs is as essential as the ability 
which instructs. In many schools the discipline is so 
spasmodic, the instruction so indefinite, the attention 
of the pupils so irregular that but little progress is 
possible. That the pupils make any advance is a com- 
pliment to human nature. 



®° Put your indolent, restless pupils to copying selec- 
tions from their readers or histories. Require them to 
copy the same selection until it has been neatly and 
correctly done. Do not worry about the amount of 
work the copying requires of them, nor the long quiet 
which accompanies the exercise. Few other school 
exercises will do as much for pupils in the acquisition 
of good English and the study habit. 



61 



Where corporal punishment is still the last resort, 
its administration should be carefully considered. It 
should never be inflicted immediately after the offense. 



28 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

Punishment must be judiciously and deliberately ad- 
ministered to be effective. I suggest that the inflic- 
tion of all forms of corporal punishment be deferred 
until the day after the offense. All kinds of school 
offenses should be met by the teacher in a firm and 
kindly spirit — never harshly. "The mild power 
cures." 



®^ Pupils should not be detained after the regular school 
hours for any cause whatsoever. Detention only irri- 
tates them. Idleness cannot be cured by any such 
cheap device. The only real cure for poor lessons is 
industry, and the only way to get an idle pupil to study 
is to interest him. It is thus clear that the remedy for 
idleness and the consequent poor lessons must be found 
in the teacher. If the cheap devices of untrained and 
incompetent boys and girls could change idle and inat- 
tentive pupils into studious and attentive ones, the 
science of education and the art of instruction would be 
easily mastered. 

®^ Recess should be short and quiet. lu graded schools, 
one or more teachers should accompany the pupils to 
the play ground and remain with them during recess. 
I^arge numbers of pupils should never be left without a 
teacher or a monitor in sight. One child alone is 
usually pure in thought and action, but large num- 
bers of children — children from many kinds of homes — 
need the constant surveillance of parents and teachers. 
Thousands of innocent children have been poisoned, 
if not ruined, by association at school with children 
from low and vicious homes. One boy or girl habitu- 
ated to low practices could easily contaminate scores of 
unsuspicious children. 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 29 



64 



Pupils should not be permitted to congregate upon 
the school premises for play morning or noon. They 
should pass directly to their rooms upon entering the 
school-yard. The school is in no way connected with 
the plays of children. It is an intellectual work-shop 
— a business institution. 



®® While hearing a recitation the teacher should stand 
where each member of the class can see him. He 
should stand still. A walking, restless teacher dis- 
tracts the attention of the class, also of the other pupils. 
Moving about divides the presence and the power of 
the teacher. 

®® Concert recitation counts for little or nothing. It 
divides the class into leaders and followers. It masses 
them. Method should individualize. It denies the 
teacher an opportunity to know the shirkers and the 
inattentive. If used at all it should be only on very 
sleepy occasions. 

®'' A graded school is a series of related steps in which 
the character of the work done in any grade is seen in 
the next higher grade. The habits of the pupils in the 
second grade describe the methods of the teacher in the 
first grade; the habits of the pupils in the third grade, 
the methods of the teacher in the second grade, and so 
on through all the grades. That is, the habits of the 
pupils in any grade reveal the methods of their last 
teacher. There is no place in a graded school in which 
a teacher can hide. 

^® The length of time required to dislodge a bad habit 
depends upon the age of the habit and the persistency 



30 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

of the effort to dislodge it. The strength of an old 
habit is astonishingly great, hence children should not 
be permitted to acquire bad school habits in the pri- 
mary grades. 

®® The memorizing of thoughts and principles is more 
valuable than the memorizing of words and sentences. 
Teachers should seek to associate thoughts and princi- 
ples according to the laws of association that the pupil 
may recall them when needed. 



'^^ A teacher who speaks in a tone lower than the aver- 
age will soon have followers among his pupils. Teach- 
ers should speak distinctly and with sufficient energy 
and volume of voice to be heard in any part of an ordi- 
nary school room. Pupils of all ages imitate their 
teachers. Teachers are the pupils' ideals. The habits 
which pupils form in school usually accompany them 
throughout life. One correct habit firmly fixed in early 
life is more valuable than a score of text-book facts. 
Correct habits are real values. The aim of education 
is right conduct. 

"'^ In the first and second grades, the smaller the classes, 
and the greater the number of recitations in a session, 
the more rapid the progress. As the attention of young 
pupils must be secured and retained by the tact of the 
teacher, it is self-evident that the classes should be 
small. No teacher can hold the undivided attention 
of twenty-five children. Her will power and tact will 
not go around. In the first and second grades, increase 
the number of classes. It is better to shorten the time 
for each recitation than to waste all of it. Few teach- 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 31 

ers can hold the attention of first and second grade 
pupils longer than fifteen or twenty minutes at one 
time. The impressions made upon the child depend 
upon the enthusiasm and the tact of the teacher and 
the attention of the pupil. 



"'^ In all the professions except teaching, incompetency 
and inexperience are held to be risky and dear without 
price. Why should the most responsible, the most 
difficult, the most complex of all professions be made 
the only exception? There seems but one reply to this 
question. Obviously it is because the evil effects of 
the blunderers are not seen at the time by the masses. 
The pupil does not, at once, show the evil effects of the 
teacher's improper methods, his ignorance of the laws 
of mental development and of the subjects taught. The 
child's mental condition is not even questioned. It is 
assumed that because his stomach remains fairly healthy, 
his mind is healthy also. The assumption is usually 
unwarranted. 

'^^ The cost of incompetent or indifferent teaching can 
never be definitely known. However, it is known that 
an incompetent or indifferent teacher robs the pupil of 
his opportunity, the tax-payer of his taxes, and jeopard- 
izes the standing of the teacher in the next higher 
grade. What the best teacher can do with pupils de- 
pends upon the intellectual condition of the pupils when 
he gets them. The difference between competency and 
incompetency — between good methods and bad methods 
— between the real and the artificial teacher — between 
the teacher who loves children and the one who does 



32 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

not love them — between the working teacher and the 
time-server or salary grabber — can never be fully de- 
scribed. It is too great for description. 



■^^ The greater the cripple, the greater the need for 
crutches; the more incompetent the teacher, the greater 
his need for text-books — for particular text-books. A 
teacher should know the subject rather than what a 
particular author has said about it. If a teacher knows 
only what one author has written on a subject, his 
knowledge of that subject is scanty indeed. Inspiring 
and courageous teaching comes from conscious knowl- 
edge of the subject taught. Unconscious incompetency 
is the mother of a majority of the school room failures. 



'® Require pupils to correct their own mistakes in the 
class. Pupils are made alert by knowing that they will 
be called upon to correct their mistakes. The only 
safe plan is to call on the blunderer again and require 
him to correct himself. Make the recitation of each 
pupil so exhaustive that he will soon see himself. Do 
not feed him with questions, but draw him out. The 
teacher who can lead an indifferent pupil to see himself, 
understands the art of instruction. No pupil was ever 
awakened from a school house slumber by a telling or 
talking teacher. 

'® Experience is valuable only when it is of the right 
kind. Experience of any kind without the inspiration, 
suggestion, and guidance of high ideals is always de- 
structive. This self-evident fact is especially applicable 
to the work of the teacher. Experience is often the 
greatest obstacle in the way of a teacher's success. Suc- 
cess depends upon ideals. 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 33 

'■^ There are at least two things no teacher can do. No 
teacher can teach an inattentive pupil; no teacher can 
teach what he does not know. Getting along in school 
work requires attention on the part of the pupil and 
competency on the part of the teacher. If either is 
wanting the school is a failure. 



■^^ Genuine enthusiasm is born of well developed pur- 
pose. It is not spasmodic, nor "puffed up." If a 
teacher really loves his work, if he really loves his 
pupils, if he has a deep conviction of the value of edu- 
cation, his enthusiasm will soon bear fruit in the lives 
of his pupils. 

''^ Success in the school room, as well as elsewhere, 
depends upon purpose and ideals. The young woman 
who teaches solely for the pay, who prefers society to 
the school and a novel to a text-book; the young man 
who teaches while he studies law or medicine; these 
cannot, in any true sense, be called school-teachers. 
Such teachers disgrace the noblest of all callings. 
Are children but bric-a-brac — souls but things — for the 
use of insincere young women and selfish and ambitious 
young men? 

®° The end sought in school work extends throughout 
life. The school is only a means to an end. The end 
sought in the study of grammar is not grammatical 
facts, but the correct and ready use of words. All need 
language; few need grammar. The end sought in the 
study of arithmetic is not answers, but mental disci- 
pline in rigid and exact reasoning. Very little of pure 
arithmetic answers all the needs of ninety-nine in one 



34 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

hundred. The end sought in the study of geography 
is not a memory crammed with dead geographical facts, 
but an imagination filled with living pictures of the 
earth's surface. 

®^ Extended discussions of topics not properly related to 
the subject of the lesson, weaken the recitation. 
Teacher, drill on one thing at a time. If you must 
talk, talk about the lesson and the essential and distin- 
guishing point in the lesson. Make it clear. 



82 



The more methodical, persistent, and exacting your 
instruction, the shorter the time required to establish 
the study habit in your pupils. Pupils must be induced 
to study; teachers must work. The average pupil can 
think and will think, if approached in the right way. 
Lead him, but do not do for him. 



®^ Teach the concrete before the abstract in language. 
Begin with the sentence. Whole things are more easily 
and clearly understood by children than parts of things. 
To a child a sentence has meaning; a part of speech has 
not. Begin with familiar sentences and inductively 
find the parts of speech and their definitions. Let the 
pupils make the discoveries. Put little faith in the 
mere recitation of text-book facts. 



®* Education begins with sense-perception. The early 
and methodical training of the perceptive faculties 
enables one to appropriate more of the material world 
than he could do without such training. The earlier a 
child is trained to see, to hear, to feel, to classify, the 
earlier its real life begins. Training, in its true edu- 
cational sense, means experience. 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 35 

®® The child's world is the material world, hence 
teachers of primary grades should illustrate abstract 
truths by means of objects. At all ages, illustrative 
teaching is more interesting to the pupil and makes 
more lasting impressions upon him than the abstract 
recitation of text-book facts. Percepts formed through 
the senses are more lasting than those formed through 
verbal description alone. 

®® The one aim of school life is character, the develop- 
ment of the child into a self-reliant personality. Teach- 
ing which does not incline the pupil to think for himself 
upon all subjects is indifferent teaching. The teacher 
who is fettered by tradition cannot lead pupils to inde- 
pendent thinking. Only the free can lead others to 
freedom. Only to the extent that a teacher is free from 
traditional beliefs and prejudices is he free to seek truth 
and to lead his pupils to seek truth. 



^'^ Music should be taught in all schools. No other 
school exercise carries with it so much of the moral 
power of education; no other so thoroughly unites a 
grade of pupils in one concentrated effort; no other 
so thoroughly teaches pupils the value of attention 
and interest in their school work; no other exercise, 
especially in the lower grades, so thoroughly awakens 
and inspires sleepy and stupid pupils. To sing fifteen 
or twenty minutes is to exercise both body and mind 
for that length of time. The exercise is almost equal 
in benefits to an orderly recess of the same duration. 



^® How much a quiet teacher governs her school by 
example is one of the mysteries of the school room. A 



36 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

pleasant, clear, moderate tone of voice compels not only 
quiet but attention. A gesture is often more effective 
than an oral command, for it carries witli it the idea of 
quietness. Quiet induces quiet. 



^^ Introduce a new subject in a plain, illustrative talk, 
before assigning a lesson in the text-book. Be in no 
hurry to get pupils into text-books. Acquaint them 
with the nature of a subject before you ask them to 
apply its definitions and rules. Interest pupils first; 
drill them in the use of the facts afterward. 



®° Merely hoping and trusting will no more get results 
in educational work than in any other work. Ceaseless 
effort is the price of results. Pupils should be kept 
busy; they should be given all the work they can do. 
Industry is essential to interest; interest is the condi- 
tion upon which progress depends. Lack of interest 
on the part of pupils is usually due to a lack of energy 
and interest on the part of teachers. 



®^ Questioning pupils upon their lessons during the 
recitation is an art — an undiscovered art in too many 
schools. Questioning is not telling. Proper questions 
should lead the pupil to tell — to think. Telling licenses 
him to sleep. 

®^ The time spent in class criticism by pupils is almost 
wholly wasted. Require the pupil who blunders to 
correct himself. Occasionally a pupil might be heard 
in criticism, but only occasionally. The word ' ' again ' ' 
is the best class criticism. 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 37 

®^ Is it not time to drop the belief that the average pupil 
cannot think, that he is merely a machine, that he must 
be directed by telling teachers and dead authors, that 
he must study arithmetic by cases, rules, and formulas? 
Pupils are underrated. A pupil's explanation of a 
problem in arithmetic or a fact in geography or history 
is often clearer to his classmates than the teacher's, 
because the simplicity of the pupil's language gives his 
classmates a clearer and completer view of the problem 
or the fact. Thus pupils often teach not only their 
classmates but their teachers. 



®* What a pupil can do in the second grade depends 
upon hozv he did the work in the first grade. What a 
pupil can do in the third grade depends upon how he 
did the work of the first and second grades. What a 
pupil can do in any grade above the first depends upon 
how he did the work of the grades he has passed — what 
depends upon hozv. If the work in the eight grades of 
a graded school has been properly done, the average 
pupil is fairly well qualified to meet the realities of life 
in the struggle for bread and clothes. If a pupil has 
been properly trained in the common school to rely upon 
himself, he will find opportunity to extend his learning 
after he enters the world of business. But if his school 
days were spent with routine teachers, he will probably 
go through life content with the daily newspaper and 
the cheap novel. ''As the twig is bent, the tree is 
inclined." 

®^ Correct teaching seldom goes beyond suggestion. 
Direct help is usually destructive help. Correct teach- 
ing carefully notes a pupil's ability and furnishes him 



38 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

with all he can do. It makes haste slowly. It converts 
learning into knowledge. It recognizes the fact that 
only what is understood and related is useful. Correct 
teaching corrects bad physical habits and improper 
language whenever seen or heard. It finds and connects 
causes and results and shows that meaning depends upon 
relation. It recognizes the fact that a teacher's work is 
an all around work — that the whole pupil should be 
trained in all that truly tends to educate him. 



^^ Clear teaching flows from a clear head and a warm 
heart. Muddy and wordy illustrations by the teacher 
cannot convey to the pupil clear ideas. Teacher, you 
should feel that you know. The sympathy of your 
pupils will enlarge your gifts and lighten your labor. 



^"^ Teaching children requires some knowledge of the 
laws which govern mental growth. A real teacher is 
one capable of reproducing in the minds of his pupils 
his own ideas and mental pictures. He is able to lead 
his pupils to see things as he sees them. He is able to 
help them to make more of themselves than they would 
without his guidance and to accomplish the work in 
less time. No teacher can do more than lead a pupil to 
help himself; no teacher should try to do more. 



Method inspires or stupefies. Under the misdirection 
of some teachers, children acquire mental habits which 
lead them to dislike books. The teachers put them to 
sleep. Teacher, are you mentally and morally awake? 
Have you convictions of your own, or are you a mere 
believer — a mere follower of others? You need more 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 39 

than belief; you need conviction; you need more than 
conviction; you need the courage of conviction. Teach- 
ers without the courage of conviction may keep school, 
but they can never stimulate mental activity in children. 



®® The number of *'bad boys " in a room, in the first 
four grades, depends almost wholly upon the kind of 
teacher in the room. Where competency is in charge, 
superintendents hear little about * ' bad boys ' ' who are 
only eight, nine, ten, or eleven years of age. When a 
teacher complains of the conduct of pupils in a primary 
grade, she confesses her unfitness — confesses that she 
lacks the energy, tact, and presence which govern 
children. Sitting teachers, dreaming teachers, telling 
teachers, always have *'the hardest rooms in town." 
If the pupils are restless, idle, and mischievous, the 
teacher is usually responsible. 



^°° Competent assistants govern their pupils. They do 
not annoy the principal and the superintendent with 
the details of their work. Superintendents and prin- 
cipals cannot prescribe specifics for any school disorder. 
They cannot supply a teacher with energy, tact, or 
perseverance. In the lower grades the chief cause of 
failure is want of energy and methodical persistence. 
Persistence in correct methods always yields satisfac- 
tory results. Success everywhere is a personal result. 



^^^ Teacher, trust yourself to govern your school. I^ean 
on purpose and tact rather than upon the principal and 
the superintendent. You are //le responsible one. You 
cannot shift upon any one else the responsibility which 
your duty demands of you. If you do not love to work 



40 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

yourself, you cannot get your pupils to work. You 
cannot inspire them by acts of pretention. You cannot 
hide your real self. Insincerity is written in every 
insincere face. 

^°^ As teachers learn how to interest pupils in the work 
of the school, incorrigibles " cease to do evil and learn 
to do well." The teacher who believes in the total 
depravity of human nature seeks to hide his own in- 
competency and unfitness in the hereditary nature of 
his children. Teachers who do not believe in children 
should not be placed in charge of them. Teachers 
who believe in the love which comes through fear 
know little of history and less of sound pedagogic 
principles. 

■^°^ The inspiration which leads school children into 
studious habits is born of character, purpose, and energy 
on the part of the teacher. A working teacher soon 
has a working school; a mere school-keeper, an indo- 
lent and noisy school. Anybody can sit in a chair, 
call classes, and hear pupils recite text-book facts, but 
such soulless routine is not training pupils to think for 
themselves. If pupils learn in school only to believe, 
the school is but a school in name — a legal formality. 
The contented teacher is a decaying teacher. Intel- 
lectual and moral contentment means intellectual and 
moral stagnation. The teacher who has realized his 
ideal school should quit the school room. He should 
seek the grave, or some vocation where his ideas of life 
would work less injury than in the school room. 



^°* Presence speaks. Children six years old recognize 
the quality of a teacher's presence. They are seldom 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 41 

mistaken in what a teacher's face expresses. A passive 
and characterless expression means easy discipline and 
indefinite and soulless instruction. A slow and labored 
bodily movement encourages like movements on the 
part of pupils. Enthusiasm, mental and physical, 
produces enthusiasm, mental and physical. All suc- 
cessful teachers are quick, earnest, and positive, in 
speech and action. A successful teacher is an idealist. 



105 /J^|^^ habits acquired by children in school usually 
bless or blight their entire lives. Methods of instruc- 
tion encourage or discourage mental growth. A pupil's 
mental condition when he quits school depends largely 
upon how he was trained when in school. His ' 'school- 
ing " may have been his one great misfortune. Some 
pupils almost lose their minds while in charge of incom- 
petent and indolent teachers. A mind naturally active 
requires exercise — exercise which will strengthen it. 
If it is not properly exercised it will fall asleep. If it 
is not supplied with stimulus of the right quality it will 
become atrophied. The law of growth is a simple one 
— use gives use. . 

^°® Children cannot be governed by brute force. Whip- 
ping pupils is a cheap device in which incompetent 
teachers hope to hide their own weaknesses. Without 
proper government there can be no instruction. Public 
schools cannot undertake to rear children. They cannot 
undertake to make good the shortcomings of homes in 
which the parents have no control over their children — in 
which profanity, obscenity, brutality, and drunkenness 
are daily exhibitions. In a well governed school, the 
pupils are equals. Each pupil is, morally and legally. 



42 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

entitled to his or her part of the teacher's time — to an 
equal part of it — no more. No teacher should permit 
an idle, street-bred boy to rob thirty or forty well-mean- 
ing pupils of their opportunity. If a boy cannot be 
governed without the constant vigilance of the teacher, 
he should be suspended. Suspension is the only proper 
remedy. 

■^^"^ The manner in which pupils do their school tasks 
describes the teacher. The manner in which pupils 
express themselves speaks volumes for or against 
the methods of the teacher. Teachers are ever on exhi- 
bition. The ideal school, good or bad, is seen in every 
thinof the teacher does. The manner in which the 
mechanical work of schools is done needs more atten- 
tion than it usually receives. It should be neatly done. 
Every lesson should train the pupil in several things at 
the same time. Lessons are means to an end — only 
means. 

■^°® Ideals are formed by comparing things of the same 
kind. An ideal school is formed by comparing schools. 
A school is good only when compared with other good 
schools. Method is good only when compared with 
other good methods. A teacher is a success or a failure 
only when he is compared with successful teachers. 
Hence teachers should visit schools, study books on 
teaching, and read school journals. 



^°® Teacher, if you lack the power of presence, develop 
it; if you lack vigor of speech, acquire it; if you lack 
energy of bodily movement, develop it; if you lack 
enthusiasm, generate it; if you do not love children, 
quit teaching school. 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 43 

^^° In a room seating more than thirty pupils, there 
should be three classes: a C class, a B class, and an A 
class. Pupils should be promoted from the C class to 
the B class, from the B class to the A class, and from 
the A class to the next higher grade whenever the work 
of their classes or grades does not tax them with all 
they can do. This classification of a grade or of a 
room not only offers the classes the best opportunity 
for promotion, but it also offers the individual pupil 
the best chance for advancement. 



^^^ In the primary grades pupils should make statements 
and answer questions in concise, complete sentences. 
Recitation in the form of complete sentences leaves a 
clearer and deeper impression in the mind of the pupil 
than recitation in the form of words and phrases. It 
requires closer attention and carries with it greater 
interest and feeling. The manner in which a pupil 
does his school work measures the value of his oppor- 
tunity. Training in its true pedagogical sense is 
helpful; mere recitation, hurtful. The mere recitation 
of the language of a text-book cannot develop thought 
power, nor cultivate self-reliance. Teaching which 
does not train a pupil to believe in himself has little 
intellectual value. Training in expression should con- 
stitute a part of the teacher's work in every school 
exercise below the high school. Kxact teaching culti- 
vates clear thinking and exact expression on the part 
of pupils. Indifferent teaching encourages in them 
muddy thinking and slovenly expression. Pupils 
consciously and unconsciously imitate their teachers. 
The teacher is the pupil's ideal. 



44 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 



112 



Pupils should not be permitted to hesitate when 
called upon to recite. They should not be permitted 
"to get their lesson'' in the class. They should go 
to the recitation fully prepared and should respond to 
questions readily and cheerfully. Pupils should be 
trained to recognize recitation hour as the most impor- 
tant hour of the day. Each pupil of the class should 
be called upon to do his part of the class task; each 
should be required to exhibit himself. If a pupil hesi- 
tates and blunders, stop him and call another pupil. 
Do not wait upon the blunderer; do not help him; do 
not lecture him, but quietly call another pupil. Give 
delinquents another chance to recite, but do not scold 
them. A recitation is strictly a business affair and 
should be conducted in a business manner. The reci- 
tation should have a moral as well as an intellectual 
value. It should teach pupils that " lyife is real; Life 
is earnest." There is no room in school exercises for 
any form of sentimentalism. Energy, enthusiasm, 
tact, dispatch, and impartiality, should characterize 
every recitation. Wakefulness on the part of both 
teacher and pupils is a necessity. 



^^^ The masses still believe that anybody can teach 
school. They confess that the lawyer, the minister, 
and the physician should be professionally trained, but 
not the teacher. They believe that the watchmaker 
should serve an apprenticeship under skilled workmen, 
but not the teacher. Now the mechanism of a watch 
is simple when compared to the complex mechanism of 
the mind. The study of the mind of another is a sub- 
tile art. The complex character of the teacher's work 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 45 

is known only to those who have made a study of the 
science of education and been properly trained in the 
art of instruction. A teacher, ignorant of the laws of 
mental development and of child nature is, at best, a 
mere peddler of text-book facts. Teaching is more 
than recitation hearing. Any human machine can 
hear pupils recite the words of a text-book, but it 
requires a teacher to train pupils to think. 



^^* In the selection of teachers great care is due children, 
tax-payers, successful teachers, superintendents, and 
incompetent applicants. Great care is due children, 
for the school is their opportunity; great care is due 
tax-payers, for they are entitled to the best schools their 
taxes will provide; great care is due successful teachers, 
for they should not be compelled to compete with 
incompetent applicants; great care is due superintend- 
ents, for they should not be subjected to unfriendly 
criticism from incompetent teachers and their friends; 
great care is due incompetent applicants themselves, 
for it would save them the humiliation of failure; great 
care is due every school interest, for nine-tenths of all 
school difficulties in the management of schools arise 
with incompetent teachers. 



^^® In the selection of teachers greater care is demanded 
than in the selection of any other class of public or pri- 
vate servants, on account of the nature and the character 
of the teacher's work. Every reason which can be 
assigned for the establishment and maintenance of 
schools, is also a reason for exercising the greatest care 
in the selection of teachers. I am strongly in favor of 



46 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

^'home talent," but not of unqualified home talent. 
Home is often a very narrow conception. The only 
way to improve the quality of "home talent" is to 
throw open the school-houses to outside talent. The 
sentiment which cries *'home talent," qualified or 
unqualified, is generated in a thimble. 



^^® The school fund is distinctly the children's fund. It 
is levied and collected for the benefit of children, hence 
it is clearly the most sacred of all funds. Not one cent 
of it should ever knowingly be paid to an incompetent 
or indifferent teacher. Competency, character, faithful- 
ness, duty done, constitute the only basis for the selec- 
tion of teachers, as well as the only ground for their 
continuance in the schools. 



^^'^ The schools belong to the people. School boards do 
not have either the legal or the moral right to tempo- 
rize with the rights of children in the interests of indi- 
viduals. The public school fund should not be used as 
a charity fund for needy families. Personal sympathy 
should not influence official action. Schools have a 
much higher and holier mission than charity. Children 
are entitled to the best opportunities suggested by the 
law. The inalienable rights of the poorest child are as 
sacred as those of the wealthiest. 




PART SECOND. 
Special Suggestions. 



I 



A genuine interest in problems of education helps to keep us 
young, for it carries us back to our own spring time and to the 
company of children. It is also an evidence that we ourselves 
have not ceased to grow, and are therefore not yet old. 

Bishop of Pkoria. J. L. SPAI/DING. 



48 



READING. 

First Step. — Use symbols or words for ideas already 
in the child's mind. Associate the object with the word 
until the recalling of one suggests the other. You can- 
not teach words which do not symbolize ideas already 
in the mind of the child. Concepts are represented by 
words — by common nouns; but these words are mean- 
ingless until they awaken in the mind of the child cor- 
responding mental images acquired through sense per- 
ception. That is, teachers cannot give pupils ideas at 
any age. Instruction may awaken and enlarge what the 
mind has already acquired by its own activity; it cannot 
create anything. A clear recognition of this psycho- 
logical fact is the beginning of success in teaching. 

Charts containing pictures of familiar objects, and the 
objects themselves, aid in associating words and ideas. 
Make much of the illustrations on the charts and in the 
primers. Be in no hurry to get pupils to reading in 
formal classes. Train the six-year-old to see the many 
things in the pictures; then require him to tell you 
what he sees. Make the lesson a language lesson. 
The use of words which carry with them pictures and 
feeling interests children. Strive to reach the child's 
heart as well as his head. 

Present only two or three new words at a lesson. 
Write the new words on the board and see that the chil- 
dren learn them. Train the pupil to pronounce the 
new words readily and correctly. A pupil should not 
stop to spell the word. He should know every word at 

49 



50 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

sight before he attempts to read the story. Drill, drill, 
drill on the new words. A pupil must see, spell, and 
pronounce a new word several times before he acquires 
a lasting image of it. 

Review frequently. Occasionally require a pupil to 
read the whole "story." Question the children about 
the ''story" — the pictures, their experiences, etc., etc. 
Get near to the children, the nearer the better. 

Seco7td Step. — Sight reading, or recalling at sight 
short sentences as wholes. Children should be trained 
to see sentences as wholes, to name the words without 
hesitancy. If a pupil hesitates, his reading is not read- 
ing, but measured word-calling. Pupils should not be 
permitted to read a lesson aloud until the new words 
and the new illustrations have been studied and mas- 
tered. No one can give proper expression to words 
whose meaning he does not understand. Correct ex- 
pression depends upon correct interpretation. Seek 
quality rather than quantity in the reading exercises. 
Train pupils from the beginning to seek the thought. 
This you can do if the thought is within their grasp. 

Third Step. — Reading to learn is naturally the next 
step in reading. A child must first learn to read, then 
he should be trained in getting thought from the printed 
page. In the more advanced reading exercises, the 
pupils should understand the subject of the lesson before 
they are required to read it aloud. They should under- 
stand the meaning of the prominent objects mentioned 
and facts stated before they attempt to express the 
thought of the author. That is, the lesson should be 
studied by the pupils and by the teacher before it is 
used in a reading exercise. 



READING. 51 

Teach one thing at a time. If proper emphasis is 
the thing sought, let it be the only thing; if inflection, 
let it be inflection only; if naturalness of tone, train the 
pupils in that alone. One principle at a time until each 
of the more important principles is mastered, then train 
the pupils to observe all of them in everything they 
read. In most schools little or no attention is paid to 
emphasis, inflection, or rate. The reading habit, good 
or bad, is acquired during the first four years. Pupils 
should learn to read in the primary grades. 

Combine the alphabet, the phonic, the word, and the 
sentence method. It requires the combination of all 
methods to make the best method. There is no one 
best way of doing anything. Success is the best way. 
No one has a monopoly of brains or correct methods. 
The teacher is the method. The personality of a live 
teacher is greater than any method. Individual power 
cannot be copyrighted. Study methods, but be your- 
self. The conscious imitator is usually an unconscious 
failure. Man is great, but men are greater. 

A pupil learns to read by being drilled in reading. 
Drill, drill, drill. The primary teacher is little more 
than a drill master. Every child should read two first 
readers and two second readers, or the equivalent of two 
of each. Drilling in what he can understand is his only 
hope of learning to read with expression and feeling. 

Teach reading in all that pupils read. Why observe 
the punctuation marks in the reader and not in the 
geography, the history, and the arithmetic? Why 
permit a pupil to disregard in any study or exercise 
what he was taught to observe in another study or ex- 
ercise? Why permit a pupil to revive a bad habit by 



52 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

indifference? The one virtue in teaching is persistency 
of purpose. Many teachers fail because they are spas- 
modic in their efforts. There is an infinity of difference 
between a well developed purpose and a spasm. One 
usually leads to success, the other to failure. 

The more uniform and exacting a teacher's methods, 
the less the time and labor required to establish a habit. 
Habit is the result of methodical and persistent repe- 
tition. Education ends in habit. An earnest and 
persistent purpose is back of every success. God 
gives nothing for the mere asking. Effort accompan- 
ies all successful prayers. *' Faith without works is 
dead." 

The only way to teach a pupil to read is to drill him 
in reading. Drill, drill, drill him until he can recog- 
nize and pronounce words without a conscious mental 
struggle. He should be drilled until he does not stop 
to think. Teacher, if the reading in your school is 
soulless, it is your fault. Take a spirited selection and 
drill upon it until the pupils catch its spirit. 

If teachers would interest pupils in a reading lesson, 
they must be interested in the lesson themselves. In- 
terest begets interest. The sincere and purposeful 
teacher can become interested in the simplest stories. 
A teacher can no more interest a class in the first reader 
without preparation than a college professor can interest 
a class in the *^ Binomial Theorem" without prepara- 
tion. A teacher should be able to give the moral and 
the spiritual meaning of every lesson, however seem- 
ingly plain and simple. He should teach pupils from 
the beginning that words are only the signs of ideas — 
that the heart of things is unseen. 



SPELLING. 

As we spell only when we write, the eye should be 
trained from the start to recognize the combination of 
letters which represents the sounds recognized by the 
ear. As soon as a pupil can write, he should be required 
to copy the spelling lessons in his readers and spelling 
books. If he is required to copy his spelling lessons, 
he will give closer attention to the form of the word than 
when he merely studies the lesson and spells the words 
orally. Written spelling lessons are also exercises in 
penmanship. The written spelling lesson gives the 
teacher a rare opportunity to train pupils in habits of 
order, neatness, and promptness. 

Spell and re-spell all new words as they occur in each 
study. In this way spelling is taught with all the other 
studies. 

Spend no time in spelling words which the pupil will 
seldom or never use. Pay no attention to unimportant 
geographical and historical names. It is enough that 
a pupil recognizes them readily in reading. 

In the first three grades, or during the first three 
years of a child's school life, the spelling lessons should 
consist largely in copying sentences and new words. In 
this way pupils in the lower grades acquire by imita- 
tion the correct spelling of simple words. 

Keep lists of words frequently misspelled and make 
special lessons of them. Concentrate the attention of 
the class upon the misspelled words; ascertain, if possi- 
ble, why they were misspelled; call attention to the 

53 



54 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

very letters in these words which most probably caused 
the pupil to misspell them; bring into clear conscious- 
ness the correct form of the misspelled words. 

Spelling is a form study. In the primary grades, 
especially, the chief reliance is upon the sense of sight. 
Pupils must acquire correct mental images of words or 
they cannot recall their correct spelling. Train pupils 
to see words, to see the different syllables of a word, to 
see the correct form of a word. Train them to pro- 
nounce each syllable distinctly and correctly. Require 
them to commit to memory a few of the rules for 
spelling; and then drill, drill, drill them in the use 
of the rules. Require them to use every word in their 
formal spelling lessons in thoughtful sentences. The 
use of the word will aid in fixing its form more perma- 
nently in the mind of the pupil. 

In the first, second, and third reader grades, a spell- 
ing book is not needed. The pupils should spell the 
list of words at the beginning of each lesson, and such 
other words as the teacher may select from the lesson. 
The words should then be used by the pupils in original 
sentences. The nouns should be used as subjects of 
verbs — that is, the pupils should be required to say 
something about the nouns and the pronouns. The 
words thus selected constitute a natural spelling lesson. 
The mere spelling of a list of words orally counts for 
little. A pupil's vocabulary is enlarged only by the 
use of words. 



LANGUAGE. 



As the object to be accomplished in the study of 
English grammar is often misunderstood, I submit a 
few general suggestions in regard to method in teaching 
English in the common schools. 

A teacher should know what he is going to teach and 
how he is going to teach it before he begins his work. 
Scanty knowledge of a subject and immature and indefi- 
nite methods of presenting it to a class cannot but yield 
unsatisfactory results. The possible ways of presenting 
any subject are many. A multitude of earnest, grow- 
ing teachers are not only adding new methods of pre- 
senting text-book facts, but are making new incursions 
into the field of tradition. 

A pupil cannot acquire a correct use of language by 
studying technical grammar. Until he can think intel- 
ligently and use words reflectively, text-book grammar 
has no meaniug to him. A pupil cannot acquire the 
art of expression by merely reciting the laws which 
govern the expression of thought. The formal gram- 
mar of a language is a science. The study of English 
grammar, at any age, is only a help to the mastery of 
good English. Thinking is the only remedy for slov- 
enly language; revision the only cure for verbosity. 

Habit cannot be overcome by rules. Rules merely 
state the well established facts of grammar. The appli- 
cation of the rules depends entirely upon the learner. 
Good English is not the gift of text-books. Clearness 
and force in speaking and in writing are acquired only 
55 



56 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

by practice. The study of the dry facts of grammar can 
never be interesting or profitable to grammar school 
pupils. The facts are too abstract. The object to be 
secured in language- work is facility in the correct use 
of words. This result can never be attained by the 
mere recitation of grammatical facts. 

Teachers should aim to teach children to express their 
thoughts in simple and correct forms. But a pupil 
should never be asked to express himself until he sees 
clearly what he is asked to say. Accuracy of expres- 
sion depends upon clearness of thought. The time to 
correct a pupil's speech is when it needs correcting. 
Then is the time for a lesson in language. The only 
cure for the use of bad English is revision until the 
incorrect statement or illustration is changed into a 
clean, concise statement. Teachers should constantly 
bear in mind the fact that one lesson in the reflective 
use of words in the expression of original thought is 
worth to the pupil many text-book recitations of gram- 
matical facts. 

Pupils should be thoroughly drilled in the use of pro- 
nouns. Many of the mistakes in writing and in speak- 
ing occur in the use of pronouns. The mere recitation 
of the grammatical rules which govern their use will 
not fix the correct forms in the minds of pupils. Pupils 
should be required to use all the forms of pronouns in 
sentences, and tell why a certain form was used in 
preference to another form. In each case he should 
give the rule requiring the use of the correct form. 

Irregular and auxiliary verbs should be treated in a 
similar manner. The mere conjugation of irregular 
verbs will not fix the correct forms in the minds of 



LANGUAGE. 57 

pupils. They must be led to see their correct use 
through their meaning. Pupils must think the correct 
forms of pronouns and auxiliary verbs into habitual use. 

I^anguage-work without an aim has about had its day. 
Much of the so-called language work in the primary 
grades is merely busy work without results. Busy 
work in the primary grades which makes little or no 
demands upon pupils has no more value to them than 
mere routine has to pupils in the grammar grades. The 
kind of work required in many of the so-called *' I^an- 
guage Lessons'^ is valueless, because it is merely 
formal. 

The teacher of English grammar should ever bear in 
mind the following facts: 

In the English language, a word does not belong 
exclusively to a single class or part of speech. The 
part of speech to which a word belongs in a particular 
sentence depends upon its use in that sentence. That 
is, the same form of a word may do the work of several 
parts of speech. 

If we place the possessive forms of nouns with limit- 
ing adjectives, the noun has but one case-form, the 
nominative. It varies in form only to denote possession. 

Personal pronouns have fixed forms for different uses — 
number-forms, person-forms, gender-forms, and case- 
forms. These forms should be mastered and their uses 
exhibited in original sentences. 

The changes in the form of the verb to correspond to 
changes in its subject are very limited. With the 
exception of the verb be^ in the indicative mode, pres- 
ent and past tenses, singular number, there are but few 
changes in the form of the English verb to denote per- 
son, number, tense, mode, or voice. 



58 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

The adjective keeps the same form whether joined to 
a singular or to a plural noun. It is inflected to show 
degree only. Most adverbs are derived from adjectives 
and take the same inflection. An average pupil should 
learn all there is of inflection of the verb, the adjective, 
and the adverb in one week. Thus we see that the 
English language is, comparatively, an uninflected lan- 
guage. However, a mastery of the English sentence is 
the work of a life-time. 

If most of the time now spent in many schools in 
reciting the facts of grammar were spent in expressing 
thought, it would not be long until the average high 
school graduate could write a correct application for a 
situation, or express, in ten words, a ten-word message. 
He cannot do it now although he has studied text-book 
grammar for years. He has declined nouns and pro- 
nouns, conjugated verbs, compared adjectives and 
adverbs, imprisoned sentences in diagrams, but still he 
cannot correctly describe an event, nor state a fact in 
clean, concise English. 

Now this fact is not charged against the pupil, but 
against the method of teaching English. The pupil 
has spent years in studying grammar, but has given to 
the use of language little or no thought. He has 
recited, but not created. Driving cold, unrelated facts 
into a pupil's head is not developing him. Mere facts 
are valueless; mere learning soulless. A pupil's head 
may be brim full of theory, yet he may lack the power 
to express his thoughts in clean, smooth English. 

When a pupil has learned a grammatical . fact, he 
should be required to use it. Use fixes the knowledge. 
If you would interest pupils in the study of language, 



LANGUAGE. 59 

you must get them to using language. As there is 
little for a learner to commit to memory in English gram- 
mar, he should spend part of every day in sentence- 
building or in some other form of composition work. 
Pupils should be required to write business letters, biog- 
raphies, descriptions of journeys, accounts of recent 
events, narratives of personal experiences, etc. 

Every lesson heard in school should be a language 
lesson; every incorrect expression should be questioned 
by the teacher and corrected by the pupil; every wordy 
statement or explanation should be revised by the pupil 
until it is clear and concise. The use of language, 
good or bad, is a growth. Habit is the result of repe- 
tition. Teachers should ever be on the alert in regard 
to the language used by their pupils in the recitation. 
Exact concise statements from pupils. Ask for revis- 
ion of every incorrect or wordy statement; be ever on 
the watch for verbose statements. The liberal use of 
the word * * again ' ' will do more to correct slovenly and 
wordy statements than all the rules of syntax ever writ- 
ten. Keep pupils constantly on their guard in all they 
say in your presence. Watch them until thoughtful 
expression becomes a habit with them. One can dis- 
lodge the use of incorrect expressions only by a purpose 
to dislodge them, and by a persistent use of correct 
forms of speech. 

As soon as pupils can write a fairly good hand they 
should be required to reproduce, from memory, the best 
selections from their readers or their story books. 
These selections should be thoroughly discussed by the 
teacher and the pupils in the class before they are 
assigned for reproduction. 



6o PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

Writing letters to real, absent persons is an interest- 
ing and valuable exercise in the lower grades. In all 
composition exercises, accept none but the very best the 
pupil can do, but do not discourage him by criticising 
the unimportant errors. Call his attention to only the 
more important ones. Children should not be too 
closely criticised in their composition work. The supe- 
rior wisdom of teachers often discourages pupils. 

Short compositions on familiar subjects — the more 
familiar the better — written according to an outline 
given by the teacher, usually interests pupils in the use 
and study of language. The use of language gives 
meaning to words. 

The reproduction of interesting stories from the read- 
ers is a valuable training in the use of language. 
*' Reproduction '' should have a place on every school 
programme from the first year of school life to the last 
one. It should continue through the high school 
course. 

Require pupils to reproduce short stories told by the 
teacher. Such exercises train pupils to hear correctly 
and to habits of attention. Frequent exercises in writ- 
ing short sentences dictated by the teacher will yield 
good results. The dictation exercises should induct- 
ively teach grammatical facts — that is, the exercises 
should be arranged upon a methodical plan with a 
definite end in view. Each exercise should drill the 
class in the correct use of words and, incidentally, teach 
a grammatical fact. The fact is secondary in value. 

Dictation exercises, when properly presented, aid in 
o-iving the idea of the sentence and in teaching the cor- 
rect use of capitals and punctuation. The exercises 



LANGUAGE. 6i 

should be short. The plan of giving them and of cor- 
recting them is important. Principles should first be 
taught and the exercises should be used to fix them in 
the mind of the pupil. Pupils should be made to see 
their own mistakes and to correct them as a part of the 
recitation. In the criticism of written work it is well 
to combine in one exercise the mivStakes common to the 
class. Write this upon the board. Have children dis- 
cover mistakes by judicious questioning. When each 
pupil understands what is correct, have him, as a part 
of the lesson, correct his own mistakes and express him- 
self properly. Cultivate a quick '' mental conscience ". 

Pupils should be trained to see and to hear correctly. 
In dictation exercises, the sentence should be read but 
once, slowly and distinctly, then the class should repro- 
duce what was given. Pupils are made alert by know- 
ing they are to be called upon to give correctly what 
they have missed in any recitation. 

The end to be sought in the study of language is the 
ability to find the meaning of written or printed sen- 
tences and to clothe thought in correct forms. Sincer- 
ity and simplicity of expression in all oral or written 
language-work are to be aimed at constantly. The 
material selected for exercises, whether poem, story or 
reading-lesson, should be of the best. Copying or any 
written work should not be given in too great quantity 
or as employment merely, to be erased without being 
examirued. Short exercises done with care in the details 
and in a good hand-writing will be found most 
profitable. 

In the lower grades, require the pupils daily to copy 
a lesson from their readers. Put them to copying from 



62 



PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 






the blackboard and from text-books as soon as they can 
write. The purpose of this work is to accustom them 
to correct spelling, punctuation, and capitalization by 
unconscious imitation. Copying well written selections 
in primary grades will do more to fix correct forms of 
expression than the study of text-book grammar in the 
grammar grades. By copying, pupils unconsciously 
learn the important rules for the use of punctuation 
marks and capital letters. They also learn how to 
divide composition into paragraphs. 

Once a month in the lower grades pupils should be 
required to commit and recite a choice selection. Such 
a study of English would do more to improve a pupiPs 
speech than the formal recitation of grammatical facts. 
It would also store his mind with material for future 
use. 

An occasional exercise in correcting faulty forms of 
expression is valuable, notwithstanding the fashionable 
cry, '' No false syntax." The correct form should be 
substituted for the incorrect one and the reason given 
for the change. 



ARITHMETIC. 

ADDITION. 

The. importance to pupils of an early mastery of the 
fundamental rules is sufficient reason for illustrating a 
method of teaching them. It is not claimed that the 
method here given is the only one or that it is the best 
one. No one has the only way of presenting a subject 
to children. No one is indispensable. The survival 
of the fittest does not depend upon the life of any one. 
Ample knowledge of the subject, interest, and earnest 
enthusiasm will usually discover the best method. 

Children should be taught to name the sum of any 
two numbers at sight. There is no more excuse for 
counting numbers together than there is for spelling 
the letters of a syllable together. To find the sum of 
two small numbers requires but one mental act. 

Only forty-five combinations of two figures each can 
be formed with the nine significant digits; only seven- 
teen different words are required to name the results. 
Twenty-five of the forty-five combinations make sums 
of ten or less. When the combinations are learned the 
mind recognizes them as different forms of numbers 
without regard to the figures themselves. Pupils 
should be so familiar with the forty-five combinations 
that the sum of two numbers is seen as quickly as the 
number itself. 

The following are the forty-five combinations. Each 
group contains all the combinations of two figures each 
which make a given number: 

63 



64 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

1; 1; 1 2; 1 2; 1 2 3; 1 3 2; 1 2 3 4; 1 2 3 4; 1 2 3 4 5; 
1; 2; 3 2; 4 3; 5 4 3; 6 4 5; 7 6 5 4; 8 7 6 5; 9 8 7 6 5; 

2345;345 6;45 6;567;67;78;8;9; 
9 8 7 6; 9 8 7 6; 9 8 7; 9 8 7; 9 8; 9 8; 9; 9. 

In adding exercises, arrange the numbers in columns 
— never in horizontal rows. Habituate pupils to busi- 
ness forms and methods. In teaching pupils the funda- 
mental rules the most exacting methods should be used, 
or bad habits will be formed instead of good ones. 

A pupil should add a column of figures as rapidly as 
he can name the sum of two figures — as rapidly as he 
can call the names of the mental pictures which repre- 

4 

sent the sum of two numbers. When a pupil sees 5 

5 5 6 

or 4 he should see 9 ; when he sees 6 or 5 he should see 

9 8 
1 1 ; when he sees 8 or 9 he should see 1 7 . Pupils should 
not hesitate in adding numbers. They should see the 
sum of two numbers as readily and as correctly as the 
name of a word of two letters in reading. 

If the sum exceeds 10, the right-hand digit is the 

5 4 
same as when the sum is less than 10. Thus 4 or 5 is 

15 14 5 6 15 16 

9; 4 or 5 is 19 (9); 6 or 5 is 11; 6 or 5 is 21 (1.) That 
is, the right digit is the same for combinations greater 
than ten as for those less than ten; hence it is unneces- 
sary to drill on combinations of more than two figures. 
The sums of the forty-five combinations give all the 
results so far as the right-hand figures are concerned. 
The general fact is established in these forty-five indi- 
vidual facts. 



ARITHMETIC. 65 

As it is often necessary to change methods in the 

lower grades to keep up interest, I submit another 

method. Write nine 2's in a horizontal line; under 

them, without reference to their natural order, write 

the nine significant digits — then reverse the order by 

writing the 2's under the nine digits, promiscuously 

aranged. Thus 222222222 245783916 

245784916 222222222 

Treat each of the digits in a similar manner. Then 
drill, drill, drill, drill. See that the pupil names the 
sums as rapidly as you can point to the combinations, 
and see that you move the pointer rapidly and with 
purpose. Allow no time to count the numbers together. 
Skip about in pointing; compel ready and correct re- 
sults; never do anything by rote or mechanically. Do 
not allow pupils to name the digits — only the sum. 
444444444 245736819 

245736819 444444444 is read 6, 8, 

9, 11, 7, 10, 12, 5, 13. Require the dullest pupils to 
recite the whole exercise occasionally and make it a 
point to reach them every day. 

SUBTRACTION. 

Subtraction is simple when addition is mastered. 
Subtraction finds what number added to the smaller of 
two numbers makes the larger. That is, finding the 
difference between two numbers is finding the wanting 
part of the sum of two numbers when one number is 
given. The minuend is the sum of two numbers, the 
subtrahend is one of the numbers, and the wanting part 
is the difference. Subtraction is thinking to the smaller 
number a number which makes it equal to the larger 
number. 



66 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

When a pupil knows the forty-five combinations, he 
sees at a glance the number which added to the smaller 
number makes the larger one. The mind almost 
unconsciously calls up the wanting part of the combi- 
nation which makes the larger number. So strong is 
the law of association that to know addition thoroughly 
is to know subtraction also. 

As practice fixes principles and habits, drill in read- 
ing differences is necessary to fix the principles of sub- 
traction. Much drill in abstract numbers in the lower 
grades is necessary to relieve the higher grades of the 
blundering hesitancy so often seen in the merely 
mechanical work of solving problems. 

Illustration: Find the difference between 8 and 
8 5 

5, written 5. One of the forms of 8 is 3; as 5 is given, 

the other part is 3. Find the difference between 18 

18 13 

and 5, written 5. One of the forms of 18 is 5; as 5 

is given, the other part is 13. Find the difference 

23 
between 28 and 5. One of the forms of 28 is 5; as 5 
is given, the other part is 23. In each case 5 from 8 
leaves 3. 

That is, the right-hand digit in the difference is the 
same for numbers above ten as for numbers below ten. 

13 
Find the difference between 13 and 9, written 9. One 

9 

of the forms or 13 is 4; as 9 is given, 4 is the wanting 

number or difference. Find the difference between 23 

23 14 

and 9, written 9. One of the forms of 23 is 9; as 9 



ARITHMETIC. 67 

is given, the other part of the combination is 14. That 
is, 9 from 13 leaves 4; 9 from 23 leaves 14 (4); 9 from 
33 leaves 24 (4). 

Write the nine significant figures and then under 
them write nine I's. Require pupils to name the dif- 
ferences as rapidly as you can point from figure to figure. 
Do not permit pupils to hesitate. Your habits soon 
become the habits of the class. 

132586749 367945 
111111111 again 3 3 3 3 3 3 

Thepupils read 21475638 3 4 6 12 

Treat each digit in a similar manner, dropping the 
figure or figures in the minuend to keep the figure 
treated always less than the one directly above it. 
Practice reading differences until great proficiency is 
acquired. 

Why ten is added to the minuend and only one to the 
next figure in the subtrahend is easily explained. Busi- 
ness men always use this method. There is no reason 
why business methods should not have the preference 
over mere pedagogical methods. 

A little spirited drill in reading differences where 
some figures in the subtrahend are greater than those 
in the minuend will enable pupils to read the results as 
quickly and correctly as when the subtrahend is uni- 
formly smaller. 

MULTIPLICATION . 

Find the definition of Multiplication in an explana- 
tory talk. Find all the new terms in the subject in the 
same way. 

Teach that Multiplication is a form of addition — that 
the multiplier shows how many times the multiplicand 



68 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

is to be taken or repeated — that the multiplier is always 
an abstract number — that we cannot repeat a number 
five cents or five yards times, but five times — that the 
multiplicand may be abstract or concrete — that the 
product is the same as the multiplicand because repeat- 
ing a number or quantity does not change its nature or 
quality. Thus, 5 units taken 5 times are 26 units — 5 
yards taken 5 times are 25 yards. Make these element- 
ary facts clear. 

Show the relations between the multiplier, multipli- 
cand, and product — that the product is as many times 
the multiplicand as the multiplier is times 1, or is such 
a part of the multiplicand as the multiplier is part of 1 — 
that multiplying by a multiplier less than 1 gives a 
product less than the multiplicand — that the product 
bears the same relation to the multiplicand that the 
multiplier bears to 1. Make these facts clear. 

Illustrate these facts upon the board — get the pupils 
to thinking. Be in no hurry to solve problems. Pupils 
need understanding more than they need answers — 
inspiration more than facts. Cover the blackboard with 
examples and have them solved logically; that is, 
require the results in general terms — the value of the 
product with reference to the multiplicand — whether it 
is abstract or concrete — equal to, greater, or less than 
the multiplicand, and give the reason in each case. 
With the statement and the result in general terms the 
thinking ends. The formal act of multiplying adds 
nothing of value after the mechanical part is learned. 
Pupils do not solve problems to learn to "cipher," but 
cipher when necessary to solve problems. Much think- 
ing is better than much ciphering. 



ARITHMETIC. 69 

Ii^i^uSTration: What are we required to do in this 
problem? What kind of number is the multiplicand 
and why? — the multiplier and why? — the product and 
why? The product is how many times as large as the 
multiplicand and why? How many times have we 
used the multiplicand as an addend? 

Multiply 8534 by 9. Nine times 4 units are 36 
units, or 3 tens and 6 units. Write the 6 units in units' 
place in the product, and add the 3 tens to the product 
of tens. Nine times 3 tens are 27 tens; adding the 2 
tens we have 29 tens or 2 hundreds and 9 tens. Write 
the 9 tens in tens' place of the product and add the 2 
hundreds to the product of hundreds. Nine times 5 
hundreds are forty-five hundreds; adding the 2 hundreds 
we have forty-seven hundreds or 4 thousands and 7 
hundreds. Write the 7 hundreds in hundreds' place 
and add the 4 thousands to the product of thousands. 
Nine times 8 thousands are 72 thousands; adding the 4 
thousands we have 76 thousands. Write the 6 in thou- 
sands' place and the 7 in the ten thousand's place. 

What is the cost of 436 yards of cloth at 4 dollars per 
yard? What are we required to do in this problem? 
What is the cost of one yard? What is the cost of 436 
yards? What kind of number is the multiplicand and 
why — the product and why? — the multiplier and why? 
Explain why we sometimes multiply by the multipli- 
cand. See that this convenience is understood. Illus- 
trate, illustrate, illustrate. The blackboard should be 
the joint property of teacher and pupil. 

Require each pupil of the class to explain the princi- 
ples fully — to define and illustrate the terms used, the 
result obtained, and the reason for it. Accept no apolo- 



70 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

gies. When a child is old enough to go to school, he 
is old enough to exhibit himself. It is your business 
to see that the exhibition is a success. You cannot do 
a pupil a greater favor than to make him feel that he is 
responsible. Get pupils to thinking — that is what they 
go to school to do. 

DIVISION. 

Find the definition of Division in an explanatory 
exercise — teach that one number is contained in 
another as many times as it can be taken from the 
other — that division is a sort of subtraction — that one 
number cannot contain another dollar times, but merely 
times — that the remainder is the undivided part of the 
dividend, hence it is like it. 

Teach the relations between the divisor and the quo- 
tient — that the size of the quotient depends upon the 
size of the divisor with reference to 1. Teach that all 
numbers are derived from 1 and that 1 measures all 
numbers. 

As in multiplication, cover the blackboard with ex- 
amples and require the answers in general terms — that 
is, the value of the quotient as regards unity and why. 
Continue the exercise until pupils understand the prin- 
ciples of division. ** If principles are understood, rules 
are useless.'* 

Illustration: Divide 8534 by 9. There are 9 
nines in 85 with a remainder of 4. As the 85 is hun- 
dreds, the quotient and remainder are hundreds. The 
remainder, 4 hundred = 40 ten; 40 tens plus 3 tens = 
43 tens. There are 4 nines in 43, with a remainder of 
7. As the 43 is tens, the quotient and remainder are 
tens. 7 tens = 70 units. 70 units plus 4 units = 74 



ARITHMETIC. 71 

units. There are 8 nines in 74 with a remainder of 2. 
As the 74 is units, the quotient and remainder are 
units; hence, 8534 divided by 9 = 948 2-9. When all 
the work is written, the operation is called long di- 
vision. Show that the reasoning in long division is 
precisely the same as in short division. 

Pupils should be made so familiar with the mechan- 
ical work of arithmetic that adding, subtracting, multi- 
plying, dividing will be automatic — done without 
much conscious mental effort. If pupils are permitted 
to pass over the ground rules in an indefinite, slip-shod 
manner, the probability is that they will always blunder 
in the purely mechanical work of arithmetic. It is a 
sad sight to see pupils in the sixth, seventh, and eighth 
grades hesitating and guessing in the mechanical part 
of their work in arithmetic. It is a sad commentary 
upon their first teachers. 

During the first four years of the child's school life, 
his work in number should be quite evenly divided 
between the concrete and the abstract. During the 
first and second years, number facts should be exhibited 
through means of visible objects. Pupils should per- 
ceive the elementary facts of number through the sense 
of sight. The numeral frame is valuable in the hands 
of a teacher who knows how to use it. The fractions 
ij 3-) iy i, i, I) i> i) -or, should be made from apples 
or potatoes. 

Pupils should be thoroughly drilled in adding, sub- 
tracting, multiplying, and dividing small fractions — 
fractions containing but one figure in each of their terms. 
In each example the process should be fully and clearly 
stated and the reason for each step concisely expressed. 



72 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

For such drills, the blackboard should be covered with 
examples to be solved orally without the use of chalk or 
pencil. The teacher and the blackboard are more 
inspiring and helpful than a book and a rule. Every 
problem in arithmetic which can be solved without the 
use of slate or blackboard should be so solved. Too 
much ciphering has ruined thousands of pupils. 
Ciphering, when not required to hold together long 
results, relieves the mind of what it should retain to 
train it. 

In the analysis of examples in arithmetic, oral and 
written, pupils should not re-read the example nor con- 
clude the explanation with the stereotyped ' ' There- 
fore." Arithmetical problems are only means to an 
end. The end is a logical statement of the several suc- 
cessive steps in the solution of a problem. No other 
subject offers a better opportunity to train pupils in the 
use of concise and clean English than arithmetic. 
Every clean, concise statement of the steps in the solu- 
tion of a problem in arithmetic is worth several lessons 
in text-book grammar. Require a pupil to try again 
and again until he succeeds in making clean statements. 

In percentage, pupils should not be permitted to 
become machines through the use of the terms Base^ 
Rate^ Percentage. A knowledge of the principles of 
percentage is best acquired by a mastery of simple prob- 
lems. The nature of the subject is best seen in problems 
such as are found in actual business, not in the puzzles 
of the " Complete Arithmetics." The common, frac- 
tional forms of expressing percent are simpler than the 
decimal expressions and should be used whenever pos- 
sible. Pupils do not go to school to solve puzzles and 



ARITHMETIC. 73 

improbable examples, but to master principles. The 
pupil's need is self-reliance, not direction; knowledge, 
not learning. 

Teacher, supplement your daily grist of examples 
in arithmetic with problems selected from books not in 
use in the school. Teach your pupils to rely upon 
themselves, not upon rules and answers. The prob- 
lems should be selected with special reference to prin- 
ciples, hence should be made a test of what pupils 
really know. Such *' out-side work " may be made a 
daily or weekly examination without any of the scenes 
which usually accompany formal examinations. 

In addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division 
of fractions teachers should ignore all examples which 
were made merely to test a pupil's ability to cipher — 
to get answers. If a pupil is skilled in getting answers 
to examples which carry with them no meaning — but 
merely the observance of certain rules, he is not trained 
by his ciphering. In fractions omit all examples con- 
taining more than one or two figures in either of their 
terms. In business it is seldom we have use for a frac- 
tion which contains more than one figure in numerator 
or denominator. 

In decimal fractions strike out all examples which 
contain more than three decimal places. In business 
calculations three decimal places include mills. 

In finding the G. C. D. and the ly. C. M., ignore all 
examples which contain more than two figures in one 
number. 

In short, if " Complete," and " High School Arith- 
metics" must still be used to the exclusion of the 
elements of the natural sciences, omit the last half of 



74 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

each chapter or set of examples, and drill the pupils 
upon those problems which clearly exhibit principles. 
Ciphering for answers under rules does not develop 
reason nor selfreliance. 

The simpler problems in the elementary and prac- 
tical arithmetics should be solved orally — that is, with- 
out the use of slate or blackboard. The most exacting 
and concise solutions should be required, and no others 
accepted. Require a pupil to revise his solution, again, 
and again, and again, until he finds clean and concise 
statements. 

Arithmetical monstrosities are common sights in all 
of the traditional " Complete Arithmetics." 

Specimen Monstrosities. "Find the greatest 
common divisor of: 1273, 2077, 4087: of 2279, 3233, 
4399: of 1827, 3906, 4599." 

'^Find the least common multiple of: 72, 84, 108, 
144: of 63, 105, 147, 231." 

"Find the sum of: 19||, 13i, 6fi, 8^. Find the 

product of: (8|+7|) (i+ A)of: (17^-131) (8|-4-i)." 

81X101X171 
"Perform the operations indicated: — - — -— — z~z-= 

^ 18|Xl4iX3A 

One more, that the picture may be more distinctly 
fixed. 



" Find the sum of: 



12i-f 7 1^,4-323 



81 + 281 + 381 

Why should any good-natured pupil be given such 
tasks? • 

"Write from dictation and read: 3.27806594; 3.0303- 
0303; 25.0000056. 

" Express decimally and read: 7001 and 3270065 

100000 100000000. 



ARITHMETIC. 75 

Many of the examples in addition, subtraction, multi- 
plication, and division of decimals are of the same silly 
character. There is nothing more symmetrical and 
uniform than tradition and habit. It is enough to say 
that in business calculations not one man in ten thou- 
sand ever requires greater accuracy than is found in 
two or three decimal places. 

In the treatment of denominate numbers and percent- 
age, the *' Complete Arithmetics" abound in the per- 
plexing and the worthless. The apologists claim that 
the useless is valuable for drill — that pupils must run 
such monstrosities into holes on account of the disci- 
plinary value of the chase. The end of such folly and 
trespass upon the rights of children is clearly in sight. 
Within the next ten years there will come to most 
pupils pleasanter school tasks than those furnished by 
the " Complete Arithmetics " of to-day. 

In most schools there is too much arithmetic. No 
properly adjusted program can find time for two les- 
sons a day in arithmetic — one mental, the other writ- 
ten. For many years the leading educators have 
expressed the conviction that the grammar school 
course should be both shortened and enriched; that 
much might be left out of the course, not only without 
loss, but with positive gain, and that much might be 
put into it which would make it a far more adequate 
preparation for the high school, or for life without the 
high school course. 

Teacher, train your pupils to solve arithmetical prob- 
lems by brief and intelligent methods and keep them 
free from set rules and formulas. Mechanical processes, 
routine methods, and set rules end in mere belief — a 



76 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

clieap and unreliable state indeed. What a pupil does 
in arithmetic, he should do consciously, not mechanic- 
ally. Memory or rule arithmetic always fails when 
needed. Principles should be inductively developed in 
the class and then consciously applied by the pupils to 
the solution of the text-book problems. Pupils should 
be trained to see that the first step in the solution of a 
problem in arithmetic is to determine what is required, 
and that the second step is to state the different steps 
in their logical order in correct, concise language. 
Training in the use of clear, clean language should be 
a feature of every recitation in arithmetic. 

Now I would not have this arithmetical pebble mis- 
understood. Arithmetic is a very important school 
subject. It has both a practical and a disciplinary 
value. Who will question the practical value of a 
knowledge of the principles of arithmetic? Who will 
question the disciplinary value of the study when it is 
properly taught? Arithmetic correctly taught is the 
very essence of intellectual training. It should teach 
pupils accuracy of statement and conciseness of expres- 
sion. The study of arithmetic should train pupils to 
think correctly and courageously. Accuracy in reason- 
ing depends upon a clear comprehension of the princi- 
ples involved; accuracy of statement depends upon the 
constant alertness of the pupil and the constant surveil- 
lance of the teacher. 



GEOGRAPHY. 



First Steps. — Introduce this subject to pupils in a 
simple talk about the earth. Tell them that in shape 
the earth is like a ball or globe — that the outside of 
the earth is called the surface of the earth — that the 
outside of anything is the surface of that thing. 

Tell them that the surface of the earth is composed 
of land and water — that there is more water than land. 
Take a small globe and show the pupils that only one- 
fourth of the surface of the earth is land — that three- 
fourths are water. 

Tell them about the size of the earth — why it ap- 
pears flat — give easy proofs that it is round — get near 
the pupils in simplicity of statement and illustration. 
Use the imagination of your pupils before you tax their 
memories. 

Appeal to their curiosity. If possible — and it is 
possible — get them to see the earth, mentally, swings 
ing in the air; to see that the sun, moon, and stars are 
all large bodies floating in the air. Help the pupils to 
create mental pictures of the earth and its relations to 
the other great planets. Pictures of all kinds please 
children, mere facts do not. 

Fix definitely in the minds of the pupils the cardinal 
points of the compass, by calling attention to the posi- 
tion of the sun at noon. Show them that when we 
face the sun at noon, we look south, that our backs are 
toward the north, our left hands toward the east, our 
right hands toward the west. 

n 



78 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

Develop clearly concepts inch, foot, yard. De- 
velop clearly the concept mile — use this concept in 
teaching the larger units of distance. Be sure that 
pupils clearly understand the unit of distance, and how 
to apply it in interpreting maps. 

Require the pupils to draw a map of the schoolroom 
floor and locate the principal articles of furniture in 
the room. Require the pupils to draw a map of the 
schoolyard and locate the objects in the yard. 

See that the pupils understand that maps are drawn 
on various scales. Require them to interpret the maps 
of the school-room and school-yard on various scales. 
Show them that one inch on a map may represent one 
mile, one hundred miles, or even one thousand miles on 
the surface of the earth. 

When these introductory and fundamental facts are 
clearly understood by the pupils, give them text-books 
— not before then. Give them yourself before you give 
them a geography. 

Home First. — Pupils should devote more time to 
the geography of our own country than they have been 
doing in the past, and less to that of foreign countries. 
The geography of Africa and Australia should be 
studied only in a general way — only as wholes. The 
small political divisions of europe, south 
America, and Asia should be entirely omitted. 

Descriptive geography furnishes ample opportunity 
for the teacher to train his pupils in the use of lan- 
guage, oral and written. Every important geographical 
fact should be described orally in the class recitation, 
and afterwards reproduced in the form of composition. 
Written descriptions deepen the images, and give them 



GEOGRAPHY. 79 

greater symmetry of form than oral descriptions. See 
that every important fact is correctly described in 
concise and clean English. 

Supplement the present catechism geography with 
geographical readers and books of travel. It is believed 
that *' catechism geography" has about had its day. 
Fully three-fourths of the time now spent in stuffing 
unrelated, geographical facts into the heads of pupils is 
wasted. A mere accumulation of facts is not knowl- 
edge. Facts should be associated with thoughts, feel- 
ings, and experiences. The facts of the traditional 
catechism geography are so dryly stated that pupils 
are not interested in collecting and reciting them — a 
compliment to human nature. 

EivEMKNTARY CouRSE. — Geography should be stud- 
ied from topical outlines, placed on the blackboard 
daily by the teacher. In this way and in this way only, 
can the teacher separate the useful from the useless in 
this study. The following outline suggests topics for 
the fifth and sixth grades, or fifth and sixth years. 

Map of the county, with location of the county seat, 
and principal towns and riveis. Map of the State, with 
location of capital and five of the largest cities, and 
three of the largest rivers. 

Map of the United States, with boundaries; location 
of the Appalachian, Rocky, and Sierra Nevada moun- 
tains; the great lakes; St. Lawrence and Mississippi 
rivers; New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, 
St. Ivouis, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco. 

Map of North America, with boundaries; political 
divisions; location of the Rocky and Appalachian moun- 
tains; Capes Prince of Wales, Race, Sable, San Lucas; 



8o PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

Bering Strait; Gulfs of Mexico and St. Lawrence; Hud- 
son Bay; Caribbean sea; Mississippi, Mackenzie, and 
St. Lawrence rivers. 

Map of South America, with boundaries; location of 
the Amazon, Orinoco, and La Plata rivers; Andes 
mountains; Isthmus of Panama; Rio Janeiro, Pampas, 
Selvas, Llanos; definition of latitude, equator. 

Map of Europe, with boundaries; location of British 
Isles, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Russia; 
Strait of Gibraltar; Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian 
seas; Thames, Seine, Rhine, Danube, and Volga rivers; 
Alps mountains; definition of longitude. 

Map of Asia, with boundaries; location of Siberia, 
China, Japan, India, Turkey; Himalaya mountains; 
Obi, Lena, Yenisei, Yang-tse-Kiang, and Ganges rivers; 
Peking, Calcutta, Jerusalem. 

Map of Africa, with boundaries; location of Egypt, 
Sahara; Nile, Niger and Congo rivers; Isthmus of 
Suez; Cape of Good Hope. 

Maps for use rather than to dazzle the eye. 
Advanced Course. — General outline for the seventh 
and eighth grades, or seventh and eighth years. 

United States. Population; outline and boundaries; 
principal coast waters; principal ranges of each moun- 
tain system and chief mountain peaks. 

North America. The Arctic regions, Newfoundland, 
West Indies, Mexico. Outline and boundaries; largest 
coast waters; zones. Natural divisions; mountain sys- 
tems, with highest peak of each; the great lakes, with 
their connections; description of the St. Lawrence, Mis- 
sissippi, Rio Grande, Colorado, Columbia, Yukon, and 
Mackenzie rivers. Location of the important islands, 



GEOGRAPHY. 8i 

the Bermudas, Bahamas, the greater Antiles. The 
most northern, eastern, southern, and western capes. 
Countries: form of government and capital of each, 
lyocation of twenty leading cities. 

South America. Important countries, Brazil, Chili, 
Argentine Republic; shape, outline, memory map. 

Burope. Important countries. Great Britain, France, 
Germany, Russia, Austria, Spain, Italy. Outline and 
boundaries, coast waters, capes, islands, natural divis- 
ions of surface; principal mountain systems; high- 
est peak, with height. Principal rivers. Countries, 
with form of government and capital of each. Twenty 
leading cities, their location, and one important fact 
connected with each. Ten exports, with the names of 
the countries from which they are sent. Distinction 
between England, Great Britain, British Isles, British 
Kmpire. Memory maps of the grand divisions. 

Asia. Physical and political geography of the impor- 
tant countries, Japan, China, India, Siberia, Arabia. 

Africa. Important countries, Egypt, Cape Colony, 
Congo State, Sahara, Soudan. 

Australia. Studied as a whole. Oceanica, East 
Indies, New Guinea, New Zealand, Hawaii, Society 
Islands, Feejee, Samoa. 

Memory maps of the grand divisions. 

The formal study of catechism geography in the fifth 
and sixth grades should be preceded by the study of 
easy books of travel, or geographical readers. 

Some books for reading and reference in fifth and 
sixth grades: 

' ' Our Own Country " ; " Our American Neighbors ' ' ; 
*'Our World, No. 1"; *'The Rocky Mountains"; 
" Travels in Mexico "; ^' Stories of England". 



82 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

Some books for reading and reference in seventH and 
eighth grades: 

"The Earth and its Inhabitants"; "Bird's-eye 
View of the World " ; "By Land and Sea " ; " Old and 
New Worlds "; "Around and About South America". 

Every school district should own at least a small 
reference library of historical and geographical text- 
books. 

Geography should be an inspiring and profitable study. 
Properly taught, it is the best common school study for 
training the imagination. It should be taught princi- 
pally by means of descriptive texts, imaginary journeys, 
books of travel, and relief maps. The mere recitation 
of unrelated geographical facts has little or no meaning. 
Pupils may recite facts without acquiring knowledge. 
Mere recitation is not significant. Recitations which do 
not have in view definite results are almost valueless. 
The recitation should create ideals and be characterized 
by energy, purpose, and feeling on the part of both the 
teacher and the pupils. Geography, if properly taught, 
trains pupils to create mental pictures of the surface of 
the earth. The study should train the pupil to see 
oceans, lakes, rivers, hills, mountains, villages, cities, 
railroads, etc. Through the help of the imagination the 
lines, and marks, and dots on the maps, should become 
real representations. The pupil's imagination should 
give meaning and life to the picture map before him. 



HISTORY. 

Treat only the great events. Only the essential facts 
should be dwelt upon — those events which constitute 
indispensible land marks. Fully nine-tenths of the 
events, names, and dates found in most of our common 
school histories should be omitted. 

In the treatment of war periods, stress should be laid 
upon causes and results rather than upon names and 
dates. It matters little what man or what date, but 
rather what cause and what result. History is not con- 
cerned in the details of battles nor in the biography of 
obscure men. 

Teach history by topics, not by pages. Forbid the 
recitation of the text. Verbatim recitation of the text 
trains a pupil to distrust himself. From the beginning, 
require the essential facts stated in the pupil's own 
language. Every lesson in history affords an opportu- 
nity to train pupils in the use of correct language. 

The aim in teaching history is character, not facts. 
A knowledge of facts is valuable only when it ends in 
correct ideals. The proper study of the history of the 
United States is a study of ideal lives — Washington, 
Franklin, Lincoln. The study of the history of the 
United States should lead pupils to love the government 
of the United States. 

After a careful study of a chapter from a topical out- 
line, require the pupils to reproduce the topics in 
writing. Require frequent written reviews. Teaching 
should be real; it should have meaning; it should yield 
results; it should reach the heart as well as the head. 

83 



84 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

No text-book is needed below the sixth grade. Bi- 
ography is the basis of history and is more interesting to 
young pupils than history proper. That is, the history 
of individuals is more interesting and more instructive 
to young pupils than the history of a whole nation of 
people. The biographies of Columbus, Washington, 
Franklin, and Lincoln should be read during the fifth 
and sixth years and the principal events of their lives 
reproduced in writing in the pupil's own language. 
''The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers", and "The 
Star-spangled Banner" should be learned in the fifth 
and sixth grades. 

In the seventh and eighth grades, the study of 
the ''Common School History" should be enlivened 
and enriched by the study of the biographies of ideal 
Americans. In these grades "To Thee, O Country ", 
"Hail Columbia ", and "Paul Revere's Ride " should 
be committed to memory and recited often. A taste for 
biographical, historical, and other good reading should 
be encouraged; love of country should be inspired and 
developed by a proper interpretation of the facts of its 
own history. 

Use only enough of detail to create interest. Connect 
cause and effect. Fix in the minds of the pupils a 
knowledge of ideal men by pointing out their like and 
unlike traits of character. Contrast is a means of edu- 
cation. History leans upon geography. The geogra- 
phy of a country determines the kind of inhabitants 
it has, the occupations of its people, hence its history. 
Events in history should be associated with locality; 
fact with place. 



FOUNDATION FACTS 



INTRODUCTION. In the hope of interesting the 
young teachers who may read this book in the study of 
educational psychology and correct methods of instruc- 
tion, I have arranged a few fundamental facts for their 
consideration. As attention is the necessary accompa- 
niment of all conscious mental life, and determines the 
mind's capacity to acquire knowledge, I place it first in 
the review of the most important pedagogical facts. 

The psychologist would, no doubt, see somewhat of 
repetition in the facts given below. But with students 
the same fact, concrete or abstract, must be viewed 
from many angles and in many forms before it is clearly 
seen. The essential facts of psychology, like the great 
facts of life, are few and simple, but are best seen in 
many different forms. 

ATTENTION. 

Faci^ I. Attention intensifies a mental state. Give 
two illustrations of this psychological fact — one in 
primary reading, the other in primary number work. 

Fact II. Attention determines the character of the 
percept. Apply this fact to a lesson in written spelling. 

Fact III. Intensity of attention determines the 
strength and the effect of mental pictures. Give three 
illustrations — one caused by emotions of joy; one, by 
emotions of pain; one, by a beautiful scene. 

85 



86 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

Fact IV. The clearness of a percept is inversely 
proportional to the number of objects simultaneously in 
consciousness. Give three illustrations — one in first 
grade work, one in eighth grade work, one in the study 
of botany. Show the general application of this fact to 
instruction. 

Fact V. The mind is usually conscious of more 
than one thing at a time. Give three school room 
illustrations. 

Fact VI. Attention converts vague, indefinite im- 
pressions into clear and definite impressions. Give two 
illustrations — one concrete, the other abstract. 

Fact VII. Attention changes dim and varying per- 
cepts into clear and constant ones. Give two illustra- 
tions — one a sight percept, the other a sound percept. 

Fact VIII. The longer the mind is concentrated 
upon a single thought or object, without weariness, the 
clearer the thought or object becomes. Give three 
illustrations — one in first grade work, one in technical 
grammar, one in history. Make general application of 
this fact to instruction. 

Fact IX. Attention intensifies feeling. Give two 
illustrations — one pleasurable, one disagreeable. 

Fact X. The more intense our sensations, ideas, 
and feelings, the more they compel attention. Give 
three illustrations — one caused by physical pain; one, 
by pity; one, by joy. 

Fact XI. Voluntary attention is the selective power 
of the mind. Give two illustrations — one involving a 
choice between pleasure and duty, the other, a choice 
between several articles of merchandise. 

Fact XII. Voluntary attention is the result of train- 
ing. It is application. Voluntary attention usually 



FOUNDATION FACTS. 87 

requires freedom from disturbance — a measure of soli- 
tude. Apply these facts to the government of a school. 

Fact XIII. Without attention there can be no con- 
scious sensation; hence no perception. Give three 
illustrations — one involving the sense of sight; one, the 
sense of hearing; one, the sense of taste. 

Fact XIV. Every activity, physical, or mental, 
results in a tendency to repeat the same act or similar 
acts in the same manner. Give three illustrations of 
the nature of habit — one in primary reading; one in 
" position "; one in the use of language. 

Fact XV. Every mental or physical act tends to 
increase the size and the power of the part exercised. 
Give three illustrations — one mental, two physical. 

Fact XVI. The strength of a habit depends on its 
age and the frequency of its repetition. Give three 
illustrations — one in school work, one in business life, 
one in society life. 

Fact XVII. Habit saves time and effort. Give two 
illustrations — one in school work, one in business life. 

Fact XVIII. Habit is automatic. Give two illus- 
trations — one mental, one physical. 

Fact XIX. Correct methods of instruction proceed 
from the concrete to the abstract. Give two illustra- 
tions — one with whole numbers, one with fractional 
numbers. 

Fact XX. Correct methods of instruction proceed 
from individual facts to general facts. Give three illus- 
trations — one in arithmetic, one in grammar, one in 
natural philosophy. 

Fact XXI. Correct methods of instruction recog- 
nize a dependent relation among school studies. Show 



88 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

that a thorougli knowledge of a subject assists a pupil 
in studying related subjects. Give three illustrations 
— one in primary number, one in advanced arithmetic, 
one in grammar. 

Fact XXII. Correct methods of instruction use the 
knowledge which a pupil has already acquired in help- 
ing him to acquire new knowledge. Thus perception 
aids apperception. Acquiring knowledge is interpret- 
ing the unknown through the known. All we learn 
makes additional learning easier by offering additional 
points of attachment. Give three illustrations of the 
appreceptive process — one from botany, one from gram- 
mar, one from arithmetic. 

Fact XXIII. Correct methods of instruction require 
the pupil to return whatever was imparted to him. 
This the teacher can compel the pupil to do only by 
questioning him. Questioning requires a pupil to give 
an account of himself to the teacher as well as to his 
classmates. Only by questioning can a teacher test the 
knowledge of his pupils. Pupils often recite quite flip- 
pantly the words of a text-book without the slightest idea 
of their meaning or application. Teachers should not 
assume that pupils understand what they recite or that 
they can illustrate definitions and rules. Teachers should 
know that that pupils know. Give three illustrations 
of the value of questioning — one in reading, one in 
grammar, one in history. 

Fact XXIV. Correct methods of instruction begin 
or close a recitation with review questions. Reviews 
deepen impressions and awaken associations which aid 
retention. The questioning of to-day should cover the 
lessons of to-day and review the lessons of yesterday. 



FOUNDATION FACTS. 89 

If pupils are confronted in to-day's lesson witli review 
questions, they will be more thorough in their work. 
Question only in regard to essential facts or principles. 
Do not tire and discourage pupils with questions about 
detail. Detail usually takes care of itself. 

Fact XXV. Correct methods of instruction recog- 
nize the psychological fact that voluntary attention 
depends upon interest. It is a well established peda- 
gogical fact that mere iteration diminishes interest — 
that interest depends upon new openings for thought. 
Every competent teacher knows that when a pupil 
thoroughly understands a principle or a problem, he 
immediately loses his interest in it. It is the unknown 
that keeps humanity awake. Few people read a novel 
a second time. When a child is tired of its play- 
things, it is willing to give them away. An object or 
a study interests only as long as it presents new phases 
to the mind. Continued mental growth without new 
material for the mind to work upon is impossible. Give 
three illustrations — one in primary reading, one in pri- 
mary number work, one in history. 

METHOD. Success in the school room depends upon 
three things: (1) a clear idea of what is to be done; 
(2) a clear ideaof the best way of doing it; (3) a strong 
motive for doing it well. Quality measures the value 
of instruction. Quality is the great thing. In the 
successful teacher it is a constant thing. A teacher 
may know the subjects he teaches but not how to teach 
them. He may not know how to use them in the devel- 
opment of the mental powers which the study of the 
subjects should promote. A teacher must know how 
the mind works that he may supply it with the kind of 



90 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

exercises which will develop and strengthen it. He 
must know something of the kind of effort the pupil 
must put forth to acquire knowledge. No one who 
blindly copies the methods of another can ever make an 
inspiring teacher. Back of every success is intelligent 
aim, purpose, courage, and enthusiasm. A machine 
teacher does not carry into his work either of the pri- 
mary elements of success. The teacher who does not 
study methods as well as text-books must always remain 
a copyist. A knowledge of correct methods is as neces- 
sary as a knowledge of the subjects taught. A desire 
for learning is more valuable than learning — one is a 
constant source of pleasure and profit; the other is often 
transient and valueless. The mere ability to peddle 
text-book facts does not require a high degree of natural 
fitness or culture. 

When the principal thing about a teacher is purpose, 
he is greater than all methods. When his very soul is 
impacted into his teaching, he is indeed a moral as 
well as an intellectual leader. In the work of the 
school the essential is not text-books, nor text-book 
facts, but earnest, capable men and women teachers. 
The real influence in education is not the fact taught, 
but the inspiration which accompanies its teaching. 
The true teacher seeks not to make pupils recite, but 
to make them think. Thinking is the beginning of 
wisdom. There is little or no moral force in mere 
belief. We may theorize and speculate and not become 
either better or wiser. A teacher needs the power to 
will and the courage to do. If he would inspire and 
direct, he must act. If he would free others, he must 
first free himself. If he would have self-reliant pupils, 
he must be self-reliant. 



FOUNDATION FACTS. 91 

HABIT. In the work of the teacher, habit stands 
next in importance to attention. The natnre of habit 
may be seen in a routine life or in the life of a man of 
correct business methods. The degree of perfection 
which habit has attained may be seen in the ease with 
which an act is performed. The strength of a habit 
may be seen in an effort to dislodge a bad habit of long 
standing. The fundamental fact of habit is that any 
kind of action, mental or physical, is more easily and 
correctly performed after many repetitions. We acquire 
power and facility in action, mental or physical, only 
by repetition. 

Habit is acquired action. ^' Energy follows the lines 
of least resistance. Psychic action carves out physical 
channels in the process of time and flows into them as 
a matter of course." Habits are often acquired by con- 
ditions in our surroundings to which we give little or 
no thought. They fasten themselves upon us so gradu- 
ally that we are often unaware of the character of our 
acquisitions. For convenience or policy we adapt our- 
selves to our environment and acquire the habits of our 
associates. As habit tends to become permanent, it 
may be an obstacle in the formation of other habits. 
The greatest obstacle to the formation of correct habits 
is the existence of incorrect ones. Schools cannot edu- 
cate children, but they should establish them in correct 
habits of study — habits which may lead to great accom- 
plishments in after life. The sum of one's habits is 
character, and character is destiny. 

Teachers should ever bear in mind that one lesson in 
good habits is worth more to a pupil than three lessons 
in rule arithmetic, five in catechism geography, or ten 



92 PEDAGOGICAL PEBBLES. 

in technical grammar. Teaching a child is training 
him in all that makes him better as well as wiser. 
Habits describe the real differences between men. 

" 111 habits gather by unseen degrees, 
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas." 

A study of these simple facts should convince the 
youngest teacher that he ought to know something of 
psychology and of correct methods of instruction. The 
teacher who knows nothing of psychology must copy 
the methods of others. If he copies after good models, 
he may succeed as a teacher; if he copies after bad 
models, he must fail as a teacher. In either case he is 
a machine. His instruction must lack the force of per- 
sonal power; it must lack the enthusiasm which com- 
pels attention and which leads pupils to independent 
thinking. He will be afraid to venture beyond the 
traditional routine of his models. The work of the 
school or of life in general cannot be well done mechan- 
ically. Every successful teacher is partly original. 
Success depends more upon what is within than upon 
what is without. 

There is no reason why the teacher of average ability 
should not understand the foundation facts of school 
room psychology. They are easily learned and easily 
applied. Many earnest and inspiring teachers have 
studied text-book psychology without interest or profit. 
They have studied words but not the subject. Psychol- 
ogy is a study of the self. It cannot be learned from 
text-books alone. In the text-books we may find the 
facts of psychology, but not the subject of study. Text- 
book facts can only aid one in the study of the laws 
which govern the actions of his own mind. 



FOUNDATION FACTS. 93 

No one without some knowledge of the laws which 
govern the operations of his own mind is consciously 
certain that his methods of instruction are in harmony 
with the laws which govern the minds of others. The 
study of psychology is a study of mental processes and 
products rather than a study of text-books. Teachers 
are more interested in ' ' How the Mind Grows ' ' than 
they are in the questionable relations of psychology to 
physiology. The essential facts of educational psychol- 
ogy are easily within the comprehension of the average 
high school pupil and should be mastered during the 
high school course. 

Teacher, learn how your own mind acts that you 
may know how the minds of your pupils act. By 
becoming thoroughly acquainted with yourself, you will 
better understand your pupils. By learning how you 
acquire knowledge you will learn how to instruct others. 
If you would know the laws which govern the growth 
of mind, you must experiment with your own mind. 
In the study of psychology the need of experiment with 
the self is exceedingly great. The general facts of psy- 
chology are best seen in the inductive processes which 
discovered them. Every teacher must discover these 
facts for himself through a study of self. Read psy- 
chologies, but study self. 




A EEMAEKABLB BOOK! 

ELEMENTS OF PEDAGOGICS. 



By J. N. PATRICK, A.. IVI. 



FOR TEACHERS MD THOSE QUILIFYING FOR TEACHERS 

Uiiusual Indorsenie7its front High Ediicatio7ial Sources. 

SPECIMEN OPINIONS FROM A MULTITUDE OF LIKE CHARACTER. 

:o: 

From Hon. S. M. Inglis, 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 
Springfield, Illinois. 
Supt. J. N. Patrick: 

" I have read your ' Elements of Pedagogics ' with care, pleasure, and profit. 
Its completeness is attractive. By the use of copious foot notes, and a simple epi- 
grammatic style of saying things, you have succeeded admirably in compressing 
into this small volume the essence of many books on teaching, 

"You have given students and teachers a plain, concise statement of the 
fundamental principles of educational psychology and correct methods of instruc- 
tion. The work is aggressive in tone, independent in statement, and ideal in aim. 
No teacher, young or old, can sleep while reading it. It is admirably adapted to 
the work usually done in the annual county institute. I cheerfully commend the 
work to the teachers of Illinois.'' 

From Hon. John R. Kirk, ^ 

State Superintendent Public Schools. > 
Jefferson City, Missouri. ) 

Sxi-pt. J. N. Patrick. 

" Your • Elements of Pedagogics ' is a rich and fruitful volume — instructive, 
suggestive, and refreshing. I have read it twice through and marked many 
passages with my blue pencil. I like the book because I can understand it. You 
w^aste no w^ords on platitudes. You speak the experiences of a live and vigorous 
man not afraid to get down into the educational work- shop and raise the dust 
by doing something. You appeal to my experience in a common sense way and 
make me think. I wish every teacher in Missouri could read your book, and 

READ it again." 

From Newton Bateman, I^I^.D. 

lyATE President Knox College, 

Galesburg, Illinois. 

" I have carefully read and reread J. N. Patrick's ' Elements of Pedagogics.' 

It is a clear, concise, and strong statement of many things which every young 

teacher should know and feel and be and do — must know and feel and be and do 

— if he would be truly worthy of that honored place to which he aspires in our 

noble profession. My young brethren, get the book, read it, read it all ; study it, 

master its truths, imbibe its spirit, actualize its precepts and suggestions in your 

work. It will illumine and transfigure that work. It will help, strengthen, uplift, 

and inspire you.'' 

From W. F. Rocheleau, Department of Pedagogy, 
Southern Illinois State Normal University, 
Carbondale, Illinois. 
" I find • Pedagogics ' by J. N. Patrick to be a work of great value. The sub- 
jects treated are those to which all teachers need to give much earnest thought. 
The work is strongly aggressive in character, plain, and concise in statement. 
It presents to the reader the highest ideals of excellence, and cannot fail to be a 
source of strength and inspiration to all who study it. It should find its way into 
the hands, heads, and hearts of many teachers.'' 

94 



M 



TESTIMONIALS. 

•I 



From Hon. H. N. Gaines, 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction 
ToPEKA, Kansas. 
Supt. J. N. Patrick: 

" Your ' Elements of Pedagfogics ' should be read by every teacher." 



A 



From Hon. A. K. Goudy, ^ 

State Superintendent Public Instruction, > 
I,iNCOLN, Nebraska. ) 

Supt. J. N. Patrick: 

" I am greatly pleased with ' Elements of Pedagogics,' and am sure it would 
be very helpful indeed to the young teacher. It might be made very useful in the 
teachers' institute. 

From Geo. t,. Osborne, ^ 

President State Normal School, > 
Warrensburg, Missouri, J 

" • Elements of Pedagogics' is in two parts. Part first contains a brief, but 
crisp review of the elementary principles of educational psychology ; and part 
second, a remarkably clear and pointed application of those principles to 
the art of teaching. These features make it especially valuable to young teachers. 
Aside from the question of pedagogic merit, the style in which the book is 
written has a simplicity, freshness and native vigor rarely encountered in works 
of this kind." 

From Wm. D. Dobson, 
President State Normal School, 
KiRKviLLE, Missouri 
" If there is a superfluous sentence in the book, or a thought but that is 
expressed in the most simple, concise and pure English, I have failed to find it. 
I look upon it as an excellent work for teachers, young or old, and could be used 
to great profit in our county institutes or as a text in any school where the pro- 
fessional training of teachers is a part of the course of instruction." 

"Valuable to students and teachers."— D. 1,. Kiehle, Department of Peda- 
gogy, University of Minnesota, 

"A capital book; not a dull page in it."— Superintendent J. M. White, 
Carthage, Missouri. 

" Send me fifty-two copies for our teachers."— Superintendent S. S. Kemble, 
Rock Island, Illinois. 

"Send me twenty-five copies for use of our teachers." — Superintendent 
T. W. Macfall, Quincy, Illinois. 

" I know of no place where so much of food for thought can be obtained in 
so little space."— W. W. Pendergast, State Superintendent, Minnesota. 

"An excellent compend; should provoke and develop thought power more 
than most books on this subject."— Prof. I^. W. Parish, Iowa State Normal School. 

"Exactly to the point; no useless words or cranky matter." — Dr. Robert 
Allyn, late President Southern Illinois Normal University, Carbondale, Illinois. 

"Very suggestive and helpful, not only to young teachers, but to teachers 
of all grades."— Superintendent James P. Slade, East St. I^ouis, Illinois. 

" The author evidently knows what he is talking about, and especially does 
he understand the point where young teachers are usually weak and how to help 
them."— Superintendent D, H. Darling, Joliet, Illinois, 

"It is the simplest, most practicable and at the same time most philo- 
sophical of all the many books I have seen upon that science."— Superintendent 
Joseph Carter, Danville, Illinois. 

"A gem in its way; fresh, new and invigorating."— Superintendent J. Fair- 
banks, Springfield, Missouri. 

" I know of no work that more profitably combines the rudiments of psy- 
chology and their application to professional methods."— G. S. Albee, President 
State Normal School, Oshkosh, Wisconsin. 

95 



TESTIMONIALS. 

" It contains as much meat on the subject as any book that I have ever read. 
Send one hundred and fifty copies for the use of our teachers." — Superintendent 
K. E. Denfield, Duluth, Minnesota. 

" I wish every young- teacher might read the chapters on method." — Super- 
intendent N. C. Dougherty, Peoria, Illinois. 

"A wonderful amount of valuable matter ; the essence of many books on 
teaching." — John W, Cook, President State Normal University, Normal, Illinois. 

" One of the most pointed and inspiring books I ever read. Everyone 
interested in education should read it.'' — Superintendent J. M. Greenwood, 
Kansas City, Missouri. 

"An admirable beginner's book, the elements of psychology and pedagogy 
being presented so simply as to be easily comprehended." — Superintendent H. 
W. Sawyer, Council Bluffs, Iowa. 

"I have examined your 'Pedagogics' and am pleased with the work. It 
seems to be the most lucid, concise, and teachable of any work of the kind 
which I have seen." — Superintendent A. B. Carroll, Salina, Kansas. 

" Your * Elements of Pedagogics ' is wonderfully clear, terse, and direct 
in its treatment of psj'chological topics. Send me twenty copies." — Superinten- 
dent Wm. Richardson, Wichita, Kansas. 

" I am satisfied that your * Elements of Pedagogics ' will greatly aid the 
teacher of Pedagogy in summer institutes. I shall use it in our coming institute." 
— Superintendent A. B. Hughes, Schuyler, Nebraska. 

" I have read every word of your ' Elements of Pedagogics.' The book is a 
success. It is clear and strong. The chapter on ' The Teacher ' is particularly 
good. The book is worth reading for the terse sentences found on almost every 
page. They would grace any collection of memory gems." — Superintendent 
W. I^. Steele, Galesburg, Illinois. 

"I have examined your * Elements of Pedagogics' carefully and with much 
interest. I would like my teachers to read the book." — Superintendent E. N. 
Brown, Hastings, Nebraska. 

" I have just completed a careful examination of your * Elements of Peda- 
gogics.' It is one of the most readable books I have ever seen." — Superintendent 
Dan Miller, Fremont, Nebraska. 

" I have examined your ' Elements of Pedagogics ' with a great deal of care, 
and have no hesitancy in pronouncing it a very able and strong presentation of 
the subjects of which it treats." — Superintendent Wm. M. Davidson, Topeka, 
Kansas. 

" The chapters on ' Habit in Education ' and ' The Ideal lyife ' will be worth 
many times the price of the book to every teacher who will read and reread them." 
— W. J. Hawkins, Nevada, Missouri. 

"It is the best book I know on the subject for the every- day- teacher." — 
Superintendent J. T. Morey, Kearney, Nebraska. 

" You have taken advanced ground without being radical. You have elimi- 
nated the trash so often found and given sense instead." — Superintendent T. H. 
Bradbury, Tecumseh, Nebraska. 

" It is a most excellent book of its kind for High Schools and Seminaries." 
— Superintendent L,. ly. I/. Hanks, Kansas City, Kansas. 



•:o:- 



The book is beautifully printed in clear, large type, on good 
paper, and tastefully bound in cloth. 

Single copies, by mail, Eigbty-five Cents; ten or more copies, 
by express. Sixty-five Cents each, net. 

g^° Special terms to County Superintendents who want the 
book for institute classess. No free copies. 

Address, 

J. N. PATRICK:, 

Sx. IvOXJis, Nlo. 

96 



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